A Little Unexpected
by Ravenclaw Jess
Summary: Daltonverse: It was happily ever after... until something a little unexpected happened. A Jogan Fic. Sequel to "A Little Unconventional." Based off the FanFic "Dalton" by CP Coulter. Julian/Logan
1. Chapter 1

***** THIS IS THE SEQUEL TO "A LITTLE UNCONVENTIONAL"!***  
><strong>which can be found on my profile page.

**A/N:** If you haven't read the original, I recommend reading it first since this fic starts off RIGHT when the original ends (and for obvious reasons... since it is a sequel after all).

So I've been bit by the Jogan bug (Yep. Proud member of the Jogan Gondola!)... I've decided if they don't exist in canon (at least not as of right now), then I'm just going to have to write it myself (and read way too many Jogan fics for my own good) :) This fic is going to be multiple chaptered. Hopefully I can get the next chapter written soon (although I work almost 40 hours a week...). I hope you enjoy it :)

And thank you to everyone who has reviewed and favorited my first story, "A Little Unconventional." You don't know how happy it makes me that even one person enjoyed my writing, never mind more! I CANNOT THANK YOU ALL ENOUGH! Any new reviews on this fic or the original are greatly appreciated.

As with my first fic, **if you are not caught up with reading _Dalton_ and do not wish to be spoiled what-so-ever, please read that first! **Although this fic does not follow the plot of _Dalton _after the Valentine's Day Fair takes place, it does contain a bunch of references to canon (and once the next chapter of Dalton is posted, this is going to be VERY off plot).

_**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._

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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

Logan and Julian sat on the piano bench in Logan's room. The brunet snuggled into the blond's chest, whose arms held him closer. They were both relishing in the feeling of being so close to the person they loved, even if they had only confessed their feelings a few moments before.

"Now, princess," Logan looked down into adoring brown eyes, "will you stop being such a diva and tell me what's going on with you? I want to help."

"Two insults in one sentence? I had forgotten what I was missing by not talking to you." The brunet returned the Prefect's gaze. He knew now, without a doubt, that Logan loved him. _Well he's going to find out sooner or later. It might as well come from me… I am probably going to regret this later. Thank God he's been taking his pills_, Julian thought as a smile came across his face. "Yes."

Logan tightened his embrace around the actor, hoping to impart some kind of reassurance. He didn't want to admit it, but he was a little afraid of what Julian was about to say. "So… why have you been barracked in your room for the past 5 weeks?"

Even though Julian was now committed to telling Logan everything that had happened, he was still hesitant to say it all out loud. Biting his lip, he looked up into hazy green eyes, surprisingly finding comfort and courage in the gaze.

"Ok. I have no clue how to say this without you flipping out… so I'm just going to say it." Julian took a deep breath. _Here goes nothing_. "I have a stalker and on the night of the Valentine's Day Fair they left a bunch of rose petals and red stuff and a mutilated photo of me and stuff on the front steps of Stuart so needless to say I freaked out and locked myself in my room and Derek was with me when it happened so that's why he knew." Words came out of his mouth so quickly that he was surprised Logan had even caught any of it. The actor sighed deeply, relieved to get all of that off his chest. This was the first time he had verbalized anything that had happened that night. He had been avoiding the topic with Derek for weeks now.

As what Julian said sank in, the smile disappeared from Logan's face and a small hint of rage found its way through the medication. "_A STALKER_! And they did _WHAT_? How could you keep something like this from me, Jules?" Logan stood up, knocking over the piano bench, Julian toppling to the ground along with it. He stood there, fists clenched at his side, towering over the actor who was now sitting awkwardly on the floor.

"Because I knew you would react like this!" Julian pushed himself off the floor to stand facing the blond. "You couldn't have done anything about it anyway if I _had_ told you." He crossed his arms, turning around and walking slowly away from Logan. He whispered, "actually, 'wouldn't' is probably a better word."

Logan didn't catch the whisper. "I could have helped. If not as a friend than at least as a Prefect! That stalker left you all that stuff on the steps of _my_ house and threatened one of the students _I'm_ responsible for. Of course I could have helped!"

"No, you wouldn't have." Julian's words dripped with venom. He was still standing with his back to Logan. He could feel the blond's eyes piercing the back of his head. "You would have just freaked out… like you just did, only probably worse because you wouldn't have been medicated. And then you would have lectured me about how I needed to just deal with it, referenced some stupid situation of your own that's really nothing like what I'm dealing with, and then waltzed on out to go in pursuit of that little Windsor fairy again." Julian's shoulders slumped. "I didn't tell you because you wouldn't have cared. You never cared about anything in my life."

Logan saw the brunet's posture change. He knew Julian was still in pain after all that had happened. He strode across the room to stand behind his friend. his arms circled around Julian, taking hold of his hands. With his hold on Julian, Logan turned him around, looking his friend straight in the eyes.

"Well I care _now_. Maybe I wouldn't have cared - actually, I'm not going to lie. I've been a jerk to you ever since we've met. I probably wouldn't've… but that doesn't matter. I _do _care and I hope you know that, because that's all that should matter. How I feel now…"

Julian let Logan's words sink in for a moment and let out a small chuckle, "You really were a jerk. But why do you think I'm telling you all of this right now? Maybe you are _still_ a giant squid of ignorance." He took advantage of the fact that Logan still held his hands and gave the blond a little push.

_But I wonder if you'd still feel the same way if you knew _why_ I was outside Stuart that night…_

Logan hadn't asked, so Julian had decided not to tell him why he had even gone outside Stuart that night; that he had planned on leaving Dalton, and Logan, forever. He didn't want to overwhelm Logan with what now seemed like pointless knowledge. _Anyway, my reasons for leaving are kind-of invalid as of 20 minutes ago… _

Julian was enjoying the feeling of his hands being held by the boy he loved. He wasn't going to go anywhere, at least not permanently. _Nope._ _He doesn't need to know._

"Oh…" Logan continued to look at the boy in front of him. "Well what do we about it now?" _'We'… I liked the sound of that_. "I was thinking we should probably tell Dean Ramsey… oh, and the police too. And I could probably pull a few strings and get some of my dad's body guards to protect you and look for the stalker. The stalker obviously knows where you are, so-"

"Stop!" Julian pulled his hands out of Logan's grasp, taking a step backwards. "I didn't tell anyone for a reason. I can't let it get out that I have a stalker… or especially that they've gotten this far. It's better if I just try to ignore it for now."

"_Ignore_ it? How the hell can you just ignore something like this? Jules, you need to do _something_! Maybe you can-"

"NO!" Julian started to angrily pace around the room now, unable to keep in one spot any longer. "I'm not doing anything! It's been _five weeks_. The stalker hasn't done anything else since the night of the fair! If they were going to do something else, don't you think they would have done it by now… _especially_ since they obviously know where I live? JUST LEAVE IT THE HELL ALONE, WRIGHT!"

Julian sat down on the edge of Logan's bed and put his head in his hands. Julian was still stressed out and had been sleeping for only an hour or so at a time. He was exhausted.

Logan stood across the room from where Julian sat. He knew it would be better if the police got involved. They would be able to figure out who was stalking Julian or at least be on the alert to make sure nothing else happened. _I_ _could just call the police myself… Julian doesn't need to know… he'll thank me later_.

But then again… Julian didn't want to do anything…

So what was Logan suppose to do? Do what he thought was best to protect the boy he loved… or do what that boy wanted for himself?

Silence filled the bedroom as Logan mentally fought with himself over what to do and Julian tried not to succumb to his exhaustion and stress.

Logan finally came to a decision. _These epiphanies must have fried my brain… because this feels like one of the stupidest decisions I've ever made, and that's saying something coming from me. _"Fine." Logan moved across his room to sit beside Julian. He took one of the brunet's hands in his, using the other to gently lift the actor's head and turn it to face him. Julian avoided eye contact. "I completely disagree with you but if you don't want to tell anyone, then fine, I won't either… even if it tears me apart inside, I won't tell anyone… But you have to promise me one thing, Jules. If the stalker does anything else, you _will_ tell me about it and you _will _tell someone who can stop all this, like the police."

Julian raised his eyes to meet Logan's. A small smile started to creep across his face. "Sounds good." He looked down to where his hand was intertwined with another's. "So," he looked back up at those green eyes, "what about this?" He raised their interwoven fingers.

"I was just thinking the same thing."

"Well… I was thinking… after that kiss, which was amazing by the way," both Julian and Logan couldn't help grinning, "I think just being friends would be a little… awkward."

"Yeah." Logan absentmindedly rubbed his thumb over the back of the actor's hand, biting his lip in concentration. "Well I'm willing to try… if you are that is… you know… we could…go on a date or-"

"YES!" Julian's eyes lit up. Normally he would take it slow before actually dating someone, to make sure the person actually wanted him and not just his fame. But with Logan it just felt… different. He didn't feel the need to verify Logan's intentions. He was sure he already knew what they were.

"Not gonna think about that at all, princess?" Logan chuckled.

With his free hand, Julian shoved him. "Hey, I've been hoping you'd say that for almost three years now. Give me a break, squid."

Logan's mouth turned up in a smile. "Ok then… Tomorrow night. Seven. I'll meet you at your door. Wear something nice." He stood up.

"Hold it. I don't even get a say in any of this?"

"Nope." Logan placed a gentle kiss to Julian's lips, pushing him down onto the bed. "Now get some sleep. You look horrible. I will not be seen in public with you if you look like _that_."

"Well you better get some sleep too then." Julian retorted with a laugh. He let himself relax on mattress.

Logan rolled his eyes and tucked his sheets around the brunet. "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that." He headed to the door. Turning around, Logan looked at the brunet lying in his bed and smiled. "I'm going to go find you some real food cuz from what I saw Derek bring to your room, you haven't eaten anything but junk for the past month." The blond turned back around, opened the door, and slipped out of the room.

Watching Logan as he left, Julian tried to wrap his mind around all that had just happened. "I think I could get use to this," he said, rolling over on his side, inhaling the smell of Logan's cologne as his nose brushed against the pillow. He let out a contented sigh. "Yep. Definitely could get use to this." He snuggled into the sheets, letting his eyes drifted shut for what felt like the first time since the night of the fair, the smell of the boy he loved bringing him a sense of safety he hadn't experienced in a very long time.

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><p>Logan closed the door behind him, a small smile on his face as he headed to the dining hall to find Julian some real food.<p>

As the blond disappeared around the corner, another boy appeared from an alcove just down the hall. A yellow and white pin shown on the lapel of his blazer. He had "overheard" (at least that's what he called it) everything that had just passed in the Stuart Prefect's room, only having dodged into the alcove when he heard footsteps approaching the door.

"_Tsk_ Well this won't do. This won't do at all. That blond psychopath doesn't deserve my Julian… There's only one way to fix this."

The boy crept down the hall and out the front door, somehow without being noticed. He was headed back to his room in Hanover. Plans had to be set in motion before it was too late.

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><p><strong><em>To be continued...<em>**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thank you to everyone who has read both this story and the original :) You really don't know how happy I get when I see an email telling me I have a review or that someone has added the story to their alerts! Thank you all :D

So this and chapter 3 were originally one chapter... but once I finished typing the thing was almost 2 and a half times longer than the first chapter. So I split it were I was originally going to put a page break. That being said, the next chapter should be up in a few days. It's written but it still needs a lot of editing.

And I'd like to thank whoever writes the Weebly page for Dalton. You are amazing!

_**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._

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><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

Logan walked across the lawn of Dalton carrying a tray piled high with food from the dining hall. He walked as fast as he could, being careful not to allow the already precariously stacked food to topple off the tray. A wide grin was plastered on his face, causing passing students to give him weird looks and whisper between one another. They were obviously surprised to see the Stuart Prefect look so happy, especially after how the blond had been acting for the past month. But Logan didn't care. Everyone could think whatever the heck they wanted. He was just eager to get back to his room where a certain brunet actor was asleep on his bed.

Just as Stuart came into view, two people appeared seemingly out of nowhere, jumping straight into Logan's path.

"AGH!" Logan jumped backwards, causing the tower of food he carried to sway dangerously, threatening to fall to the ground at any moment. When he rebalanced the tray, he looked up at what had startled him. He was met by two pairs of identical blue eyes. "Evan? Ethan? What the hell was that for?"

"We thought the Knave looked different today."

"Happier than usual."

"So we thought we'd stop and ask you why."

"So what is making the Knave…"

"Look particularly happy today?"

Both twins stood facing Logan. The Stuart's facial expression faltered for a split second… was that fear they saw?

_Oh God… do they know? How could they know? But they somehow always seem to know everything… Oh God, they probably know. Ok. Keep calm, Logan. Act like nothing out of the ordinary is happening…_"Yes. I'm happy. I've just had a nice day. That's all." Logan took a step to the side, meaning to walk around the pair. "Now if you'll excuse me. I have to get back to my room… before my food gets cold."

The twins took a matching step, blocking Logan's path again.

"We're glad you're happy."

"And apparently very hungry as well…"

"Because that is an awful lot of food for one person."

"Anyways… you don't actually need to tell us why you're so happy."

"We already know!" They said in unison. Their mouths turned up in identical mischievous grins.

Fear flickered on Logan's face once again. The average person wouldn't have caught the slight change. But the twins went average. They turned toward each other, sharing another mischievous smile between them, turning back towards Logan.

_They definitely know… No no no. They can't know! Ok. I need to get out of here. Now_. "Whatever. Now move so I can get back to my room. If my ice cream is melted before I get back to my room, you two are going to pay." Logan side stepped again, this time succeeding in getting away from the other two boys.

"Ok Knave…" The two waved at the departing Prefect.

"I hope the Cat likes his quiche…"

"Because he's almost as picky of an eater as you are."

Logan stopped dead in his tracks and winced. He slowly turned around on his heels. _Crap… they know_. "How the hell did you two find out? That only happened, like, 20 minutes ago!"

"Oh so we were right?"

"Sweet!"

"You didn't actually _know_?" A shocked expression appeared on Logan's face.

"Nope." The twins said in unison.

"We just kind of figured…"

"When you walked by on the way to the dining hall…"

"Looking quite happy for a change…"

"That something good had happened."

"And seeing how you have been uncharacteristically upset…"

"Because of a certain actor…"

"That when your mood changed…"

"It had to be because of him."

"Which probably meant…"

"That said actor…"

"Finally confessed his love for you…"

"Because that's the only good thing…"

"That we could think of…"

"That would change your mood so drastically…"

"In such a short amount of time…"

"That involved our Knave and Cat."

"WAIT! You _knew_ that Julian likes me?" Logan interrupted the pair. "Was I, like, the only one that didn't know or something?"

"Pretty much."

"At least out of those who matter."

"Plus we make it our mission…"

"To know everything that goes on at this school."

"Especially the secrets." The twins talked in unison once more.

Logan stared at Evan and Ethan in disbelief. _What the hell do I do now?_ "So what are you gonna do about it? You better not tell anyone. Because if you do-"

"Don't worry."

"We may know a lot of secrets…"

"But we don't disclose them to others..."

"Because then they wouldn't be secrets anymore…"

"And what's the fun in that?"

"Anyway…"

"We'd like to help our little Knave and Cheshire Cat."

"How the hell can you help us?" Logan was a little afraid now. Who knew what kind of Windsor-style shenanigans the two were cooking up already.

"Well seeing how you don't have a single romantic bone in your body…"

"We would like to offer you our skills in planning your first date."

"Just so you know, I am actually very romantic. You both know that! Remember back when I was dating Blaine and I- Whoa, whoa. Hold on a second… Did you just say 'first date'? _How the hell_ did you figure that out too? You two are ridiculous!" Logan had known the twins for years now but he had still yet to discover how they found all this stuff out.

"We just assumed…"

"That since you found out the Cat loves you…"

"And that he probably knows you love him by now…"

"That you two were planning a date."

"Seeing how the Cat doesn't want to leave his room…"

"And you can't go out in public together because of his acting career…"

"We figured that the date…

"Would have to be here at Dalton…"

"Where the two of you would be left entirely to your own devices to plan everything…"

"Including the food…"

"We all know that would not end well."

"So we want to help," they said together.

"Plus it would be fun…"

"If neither of you knew what to expect on your first date."

Logan hadn't even thought of that… that their first date would have to be at Dalton, for Julian's physical and career security. _Maybe I _should_ let them help…_ "Fine. I'm probably going to regret this later… but you two can help. But only because I have Prefect and Warbler stuff I have to catch up on, so I don't actually have time to do it myself!" _I am really going to regret this later, aren't I?_

"Yay!" the twins exclaimed together, jumping up a down excitedly.

"Time…"

"And place?"

"Well," Logan said, "I told Julian tomorrow night at seven… I hadn't thought of a place yet… But like you said, it should be somewhere on campus."

"Hadn't thought of a place yet?"

"And it's tomorrow night too?"

"Well good thing we stepped in to help."

"You, Knave, are hopeless without us." The two turned towards each other, sharing a look that made it seem as though they were reading each other's minds. There was not a doubt in Logan's mind that they probably were.

"Ok. You and Julian…"

"Stuart Common Room…"

"Seven O'clock tomorrow night…"

"Sharp."

"Be prepared for the Tea Party of a life time." The two turned around and skipped off in the direction of Windsor without a backwards glance.

"Wait! _Tea Party_? It's not actually going to be a tea party, right? That's just one of your crazy Alice references!... Right?... Right? Your plans better not involve _anything_ Alice in Wonderland themed or so help me-!" he called out after the pair. But they had already disappeared. _What the hell have I done? _Logan groaned. Then he remembered the tray of food he carried in his hands. He turned, resuming his trek back to Stuart. He had the feeling that tomorrow night would probably be a disaster now that the twins were involved. Trying to suppress the dread he know felt, his thoughts drifted back to the brunet in his room. He was waiting for the food he carried.

Julian was waiting for him. A smile returned to the blond's face.

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><p><strong>To be continued<strong>

**A/N:** I hoped you enjoyed the chapter. Writing the Tweedles was a lot of fun. As always, any reviews are greatly appreciated :)


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Hello again. So this is chapter three. It's longer than either of the other two chapters (It's pretty much the length of both of them combined actually...). I hope you enjoy :)

Thank you again to everyone who has stuck with my story so far (and thank you to anyone who has just found this and made it to this chapter) :)

_**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._

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><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>

The next morning, Logan told all the Stuarts that the hardwood floor in the Common Room had been re-sealed overnight and no one was allowed in until the next morning when it was dry. Since Logan was Prefect, no one questioned the order. Most of the students had gone home for the long weekend anyway, but the lie would keep any unsuspecting students who had stayed from stumbling upon whatever the Twins were planning.

Logan decided not to take his medication that morning. Now that the whole Julian situation was resolved, at least between the two of them, he no longer felt the need to hide in a haze. Plus, he wanted to feel every emotion during their date that night, good or bad, without the effects of his medication to fight through.

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><p>The grandfather clock down the hall chimed, the sound signaling the arrival of a quarter to the next hour. Logan turned his head, checking the alarm clock on his nightstand. It was a quarter to seven.<p>

Logan stood in front of his mirror, putting the finishing touches on his outfit. He buttoned up his blue-grey dress shirt, straightened his deep purple tie, and dusted off his dark washed jeans. He put on a black cardigan and ran a hand through is blond hair. "Well, here goes nothing."

Logan left his room and made his way to the down the hall to the actor's door. He took a deep breath and knocked twice. "Hey Jules… You ready to go?" He heard shuffling inside the room as footsteps approached the door. The door knob turned. It swung open to reveal Julian dressed and ready for their date. Logan couldn't help but look over every inch of the actor, who wore a jade green dress shirt whose top button was undone and black dress pants. His brown hair swept across his forehead. He carried a black leather jacket over his shoulder.

Logan's mind started to drift. He shook his head to bring himself back to reality. "Y-you look nice." Logan smiled.

"Thanks." Julian gave the blond a crooked smile. "You do too."

"Now," Logan raised his arm, offering it to Julian, "shall we?"

Julian hooked his arm around the blond's. "Let's go." They started heading down the hallway. "So… where are we going?"

"You'll see." Logan gave him a sideways glance.

"You're not going to tell me anything, are you."

"Nope. It's a surprise."

They walked down the stairs, Logan leading the way. They stopped at the doors to the Common Room. "What are we doing here? I thought the floors were just re-sealed." Julian looked at Logan, a little confused.

"I may have lied… so we could have our date in Stuart. You know... so you don't have to worry about your stalker."

"Aw. The squid is being thoughtful. You really do like me." Julian gave Logan puppy dog eyes and chuckled. "But seriously, Lo,… the Common Room isn't exactly romantic. What are we going to do in there? Stare at the walls?" Julian rolled his eyes.

Logan smirked at the brunet. "Shut it Larson… before I change my mind and leave you here to go on our date alone," Logan said sarcastically.

Raising his free arm, Logan placed his hand on the door handle. He hesitated. "Uh. Julian." He looked the brunet in the eyes. "I should probably tell you that when I open the doors, I am not responsible for _anything_ that's in there."

"What the hell is that suppose to mean?"

"Well, uh… It's a long story, but the twins may have ambushed me yesterday and somehow convinced me to allow them to plan our date…"

Julian raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"I, uh, let the Twins plan-"

"Ok, so I did hear you right… What possessed you to allow those two to plan our date?"

"Momentary lapse of judgment…? I had a lot of stuff to catch up on, ok. I've been spending the past few weeks worrying about you so I haven't exactly been keeping up with my Prefect duties. And then I told you the date would be tonight and I didn't want to reschedule on you… so when the Twins offered, I let them go for it… no matter how ridiculous the outcome would be." Logan shrugged his shoulders.

"Well then this should be interesting."

"You mean… you still want to do this? There could be, like, a giant table filled with mismatching dishes and Alice in Wonderland scenery everywhere for all I know… You know how the Twins are."

"Hey. If the place is covered in red painted roses and giant playing cards or something, we can always go to my room and watch a movie… Might as well give this a go first." Julian shrugged.

They looked at each other for a second. Logan was seriously thinking about skipping immediately to plan "B." But they were already standing here in front of the Common Room doors. He agreed with Julian on this one… might as well try. They could always bail later.

"Well then, here we go." He placed his free hand back on the door handle, this time turning it. The door swung open.

Their jaws dropped. They walked inside quickly and shut the door in case anyone happened to walk by. Everyone else still needed to think the room was off limits and not the location of their Prefect and resident celebrity's first date.

The Common Room looked completely unfamiliar. All the furniture had been moved off to the ends of the room, hidden behind a wall of white lattice room dividers covered in ivy and deep red roses. Near the fire place, a small round table draped with burgundy colored linens stood. On the table sat a small but ornate silver candelabra, candles flickering. On one side was a single white rose in a tiny silver vase and on the other was a matching silver container filled with breadsticks. A set of white place settings and napkins with a delicate silver ivy pattern around the edge and polished silver flatware lay in front of each of the two burgundy padded oak chairs. What looked to be crystal water goblets graced the upper right corner of both table settings. The only light in the room came from a fire the burned brightly in the hearth, casting a warm glow over the room. The room looked like a small version of an upscale restaurant. Logan and Julian shared the same thought. _How the hell did the Twins do all of this without anyone knowing?_

Logan was the first to speak. "Forget what I said earlier. I take credit for all of this. The entire thing. It was all me. All my idea." He gestured widely across the room with his hand.

"Now Knave…"

"That's not nice."

"After we put all our sweat and tears into this…"

"You want to take all the credit?"

Evan and Ethan appeared behind Logan and Julian, making the latter pair jump. They turned to see two blond boys dressed in black pants, white dress shirts, burgundy tuxedo vests and matching bow ties. A white cloth was draped over each of their forearms which they held across their waist, the other arm held behind their back. They stood in mirror image of each other.

"It's ok. I would never in a million years believe that Logan could pull something like this off all by himself," Julian chuckled.

Logan took advantage at their still interlaced arms and gave Julian a light jab to the ribs. "Hey. I could totally have come up with something like this if I'd had more time to plan everything out."

"No you wouldn't have, just admit it!"

"I so could have. Now don't push it. I can still leave you here alone with the Twins, remember."

"Oh. But you won't. At least not once I get my moves on." Julian wiggled his eye brows.

"What moves? Your 'moves' are as advanced as a four year old's."

"What are yo-"

"Now, now gentleman…" Ethan interrupted them.

"Are you going to stand there bickering all night…"

"Or are you going to sit down and enjoy the meal we prepared for you?"

"Well, ordered in."

"Either way, the food is getting colder by the minute."

The two Stuarts looked at each other and Logan shrugged, leading Julian to the table on the other side of the room as the twins disappeared behind the room dividers to the left. They unlinked their arms. Logan hesitated for a moment, and then took a step to stand behind one of the chairs. He pulled it out and motioned to Julian. "Have a seat, princess." He smiled.

Julian was tempted to make a witty comeback. That's just how his brain worked. The guy had just called him 'princess' after all. That definitely deserved one of Julian Larson's signature comebacks… But seeing the look in Logan's eyes put a mental stop to that train of thought. There was nothing but adoration to be found in them. "Umm… thanks." He took a seat and Logan pushed the chair in for him. Moving around the table, the Prefect took his own seat.

They sat there in silence. The only sound was the scooting of Julian's chair as he moved it into a better position and Logan clearing his throat. Why had this suddenly turned so awkward for the both of them? Maybe it was the realization of exactly what they were doing or exactly who they were with… Neither of them could really say what the cause was, but the awkwardness remained none-the-less.

Logan tried to lessen the tension by talking to the Twins. "So, why didn't you go all out with the Alice in Wonderland theme? I kind of expected you to."

From behind the room dividers, Evan and Ethan could be heard. "We may like Wonderland…"

"But not _everything_ we do has to revolve around it."

"Like the New Years Eve Party."

"Not a giant caterpillar in sight."

"The date is for you two after all, not us."

"We decided that 'fine dining' would fit your tastes and the occasion better."

The two popped their heads out from behind the divider.

"But if you're disappointed…"

"We could easily change everything."

"We'd just need a-"

"Nope. Nope. We love this. Carry on!" Logan shook his head, waving his hands. Julian and his eyes were filled with horror.

Unfortunately, the conversation with the Twins had failed to break the tension. The awkward silence filled the room once more. Logan picked invisible lint off his sleeves while Julian played with his silverware. After a few more minutes passed, Evan and Ethan reappeared from behind the ivy covered wall, one holding a bowl of salad, the other a pitcher.

"Good evening gentlemen."

"I'm Ethan…"

"And I'm Evan…"

"And we will be your servers tonight," they both added in unison.

"We know who you are," Logan said.

"Shh…," the twins hushed.

"You're ruining the atmosphere…"

"Now play along…"

"It'll be more fun that way." The two returned to character.

"Yeah." Julian added, receiving a sideways glare from Logan.

"Now…," Ethan said, interrupting the looks the two seated boys were now giving each other.

"We'll start off with a nice garden salad." Evan began to dish out salad onto both plates.

"Please let us know if you need anything else." Ethan poured water from the pitcher he held into each glass.

"Anything what-so-ever."

The identical pair backed away, saying together, "We hope you both enjoy your evening." They disappeared again behind the room divider.

Both boys stared at their plates for a moment and then began to dig into their salads. They sat in silence for a few minutes. That's when Logan decided it would be a good idea to bite a particularly large cherry tomato in half. As he bit down, the end of the tomato split open, seeds squirting all over him, the table, and Julian. The look of complete shock and horror on Logan's face caused Julian to choke on the water he was sipping and spill some from the glass as he tried to place it on the table while violently coughing a few times. They both looked at each other and then burst out laughing.

"You look absolutely ridiculous, Lo," Julian managed to get out between gasps for air.

"So do you, you prick. We're both covered in tomato goo." Logan was laughing so hard his sides were beginning to ache. They both attempted to clean their faces and the table cloth with their napkins through their fit of laughter.

It was a few minutes before either of them began to calm down. They were both teary eyed and gasping for breath.

"Well then," Logan spoke, "that certainly broke the tension." In that moment they were reminded of how awkward they had both been feeling.

"Why do you think this is so uncomfortable for both of us?" Julian questioned. "I mean, we've known each other for three years, we're best friends, and, hell, we've even _kissed_… why is just having dinner suddenly so difficult?"

"I-I don't know."

Logan looked down at Julian's hand where it lay on the table. The blond slowly raised his own and placed it on the table, further towards the center than the brunet's. Julian saw the movement out of the corner of his eye and looked down at Logan's hand. Looking back up, brown eyes met green, sending an unspoken message across the table. The actor's hand slowly moved toward the center of the table, brushing up against Logan's. Both gave small smiles, enjoying the contact after the awkward silence that had filled their evening so far.

Then the Twins reappeared. Hands shot away from each other and back into their laps to fumble with napkins. Ethan carried a plate of food in each of his hands while Evan carried the water pitcher. The latter refilled the two water glasses and took the salad plates off the table. Ethan replaced them with plates piled high with sauce covered noodles.

"Tonight, our special is spaghetti and meatballs."

"We hope you are enjoying your evening so far…"

"And that the food is to your liking."

"Oh, yeah. It-t's great." Julian blushed slightly, still flustered from the moment he and Logan had just shared.

"Yeah. Delicious," Logan followed, adding a smile for good measure.

"We're glad."

"Is there anything else we can get you fine gentlemen this evening?"

"N-no. We're good… or at least I am," Julian stuttered.

"Oh, yeah. I'm good, too."

"Ok…"

"We will be back when you are done with your meals."

"Remember, if you need anything…"

"Just ask…" The twins smiled identically, disappearing behind the ivy once more.

Both of them dug into their food, exchanging small talk and their usual banter now that the tension had been broken by the tomato incident. When they had both finished their pasta, the two identical blonds reappeared, to clear their plates. Ethan removed the candelabra, rose, and breadsticks from the table while Evan placed a tray of chocolate-covered strawberries in their place.

"We hoped you have enjoyed your meal."

"Again, if you need anything…"

"Just ask."

Logan let out a groan. It was obvious that he was getting annoyed by the Twins repeated insistence that they would get them anything.

As the twins made their way back behind the white lattice, Julian caught their attention. "Actually, I would like something." Logan gave him a questioning look. What could he possible need?

"Yes?"

"What can we do for you?"

"Um… could you, maybe, you know… leave… like, not just behind the divider, but, out of the room?" Julian asked hesitantly. Logan stared at the actor, a bit confused.

"Of course." The twins exchanged knowing grins.

"You and the Knave would like some privacy."

"We'll be back early tomorrow morning…"

"To put everything back to normal."

"No one will ever know what happened."

"Enjoy the rest of your evening." The Twins added together before slipping out of the Common Room and heading back to Windsor.

"Ok… what was that for?" Logan looked at Julian across the table once he heard the front door close.

"So we could do stuff like this," Julian's hand moved across the table, taking hold of Logan's and giving it a little squeeze, "without being interrupted."

Logan grinned. "I think I like where this is going." With his free hand, Logan picked up a strawberry. He paused. "Jules, would you mind if I moved?"

Julian looked at the blond quizzically. "Why would I mind if you moved? It's your chair. Move it wherever you want." The brunet shrugged.

Logan placed the strawberry back on the tray, removed his hand from Julian's and stood up from his seat. But instead of moving his chair, he walked around the table to stand beside Julian. "Ok. Get up."

"What does me getting out of my own chair have to do with _you_ moving? Or have you just now realized that you haven't been a jerk to me all night so you're going to start now?" Julian crossed his arms over his chest. "I refuse to move."

"Seriously? I'm not trying to be a jerk. Stop being so immature and just move, Larson." Julian finally gave into the glare he was receiving from Logan. _What the hell. We're on a date. I'll humor him._ He stood up… and Logan took his chair.

"What the HELL? You're stealing my seat? Now look at who's being immature… Fine then. If you want my seat, I'll just take yours."

As Julian made to move around the table and take the other seat, arms encircled his waist and his back suddenly made contact with the blond's chest. "Now aren't you glad you moved?" Logan whispered into the actor's ear.

"Umm… y-yeah." Chills ran down Julian's spine at the sudden close contact with the blond.

"Now. I'm still hungry," Logan said, reaching for a chocolate-covered strawberry. "How about you?"

"Y-yeah." Julian repositioned himself in Logan's lap, sitting sideways so that they could see each other. He watched as Logan's hand moved the strawberry, not to the blond's mouth, but to his own.

"Here." The blond touched the strawberry to the actor's lips. Julian hesitated for a moment, then took a bit and chewed a few times, maintaining eye contact with Logan the entire time.

Julian stopped mid-chew. His eyes widened. "Oh. My. Gawd."

"What? Are they bad or something. I'm going to get the Twins if they served us bad fruit." Logan smelled the partial strawberry he still held. "It seems fine to-"

"That is the best thing I've eaten in my entire life." Julian practically inhaled the remainder of the strawberry Logan held and then lunged across the table to get another. Needless to say, the romantic atmosphere had just been shattered.

"How can a piece of fruit be that good, even if it is covered in chocolate?" Logan was a little afraid by how instantaneously the mood had changed... and of how obsessed Julian seemed to be with these strawberries. This level of obsession could not be healthy. But the blond was curious what all the fuss was about. He grabbed a strawberry for himself and took a bite. His own eyes widen. "These things are freaking delicious!" Logan shoved the rest of the fruit in his mouth, grabbing another one and eating it almost whole. "We need to ask the Twins where they got these!"

"I. KNOW!" Julian exclaimed shoving another strawberry in his mouth. He'd already lost count of how many he had eaten. "Where have these things been all my life?"

The two continued to devour strawberries until they were looking at an empty plate.

"They're all gone…" Logan said sadly, looking up a Julian who was still perched on his lap.

"I'm gonna miss them, too." Julian responded, patting the blond comfortingly on the shoulder. Then they both started to laugh. "We're both upset over _fruit_? What's wrong with us?"

" Are we pathetic or what?"

Logan and Julian continued to laugh, foreheads pressed together. The blond's arms had returned to the actor's waist, attempting to keep the two upright as they shook with laughter. After their second laughing fit of the night, the two looked at each other through tear filled eyes. Logan's gaze fell to Julian's mouth, the corner of which was covered in chocolate. "You have chocolate on your mouth."

"Oh… thanks I guess?" Julian reached for his napkin but before he could, Logan had place a hand on his cheek, turning him back towards the blond. "Oh." Julian gave a little smile.

"Don't worry. I'll get it for you." Logan closed the distance between them, pressing his lips to Julian's, wiping the chocolate off in the process. Julian's hand found its way to the back of Logan's neck, fingers snaking into blond hair.

"I could have gotten that myself," Julian said when they broke apart, a little out of breath.

"Yeah… but isn't this more fun?" Logan placed another kiss to the brunet's lips.

"Look at you, coming up with all these good ideas tonight." Julian smiled at Logan, looking deep into his green eyes. He had missed the way they looked without medication. The color and emotions were just so much more intense.

"You've had a couple good ideas too I might say. Like we couldn't do this," he kissed Julian for the third time that night, "if you hadn't asked the Twins to leave."

The sound of the grandfather clock could be barely heard chiming from the floor above. Julian glanced at the clock that hung above the door. It was Midnight. _Has it really been 5 hours? _"We should probably get to bed."

"Need your beauty sleep, princess?" Logan smiled. Julian frowned slightly. "Geez. I'm kidding. I'm tired too. Anyway, the Twins are going to need time to get everything put back the way it was before the early risers wonder what happened when they come down to study in a few hours."

Julian stood up from Logan's lap, taking two steps towards the door to make room for the blond to get up. He stopped abruptly and clutched his stomach, groaning.

"What's wrong?" Logan said, standing up. He took a step and clutched his stomach as well.

"I… think I ate… too many strawberries," the brunet managed to get out. He felt like there was a 2 ton weight sitting in his stomach. Logan didn't feel much better.

"If I feel this awful," Logan looked up to make eye contact with Julian, "then you must be miserable… because I'm pretty sure you ate two thirds of the strawberries by yourself."

"I did not!" Julian said, trying to move back towards Logan. "Ugh. Moving makes it worse. Never mind then. It doesn't matter. Let's just get to bed."

Logan took a step to stand next to Julian, putting his arm around the brunet's shoulders while the brunet carefully placed his arm around the blond's waist in an attempt to support each other.

"You don't feel like you're going to be sick, right?" Logan asked.

"No no. I just feel gross. I'll be fine in the morning… I hope. You?"

"Same."

The pair staggered up the stairs, managing to get to the door of Julian's room. It had taken 5 minutes, but they had gotten there. "This is _not_ how I wanted the night to end," Julian said, leaning up against the door.

"Me either." Logan leaned up against the door frame. _My room… feels so far away right now. Maybe I…_ "Hey Jules?"

"Yeah." Julian weakly turned his head. _Great. Even moving my head makes it worse._

"Um… if you don't mind, could I stay in your room tonight? I think I'll collapse halfway to mine if I try making it there without help."

"Yeah." Julian looked into Logan's eyes. "I was actually planning on asking you myself… I hate to admit it, but I can't sleep without someone in the room with me… and with Derek home for the night and everything, I'd just feel better if you were here... in my room… with me."

Logan smiled through his pain. "Ok, princess. Don't worry. That stalker's not coming anywhere near you while I'm here."

Julian unlocked his door and both boys made their way inside. "It's not just because of the stalker thing… I… kind of want you here anyway." He closed the door and locked it. "By the way, stop calling me princess… I'm not a girl." They both began to get out of their dress clothes. Julian carefully shuffled to his dresser, pulling out clothing for him and Logan.

"But I've decided it's my pet name for you." Logan slipped into the pair of Julian's sweat pants had thrown him.

Having finished changing, Julian turned to Logan has he began to shuffle back across his room towards his bed. "Fine. If you've decided that my pet name's 'princess,' then I reserve the right to call you 'squid.'" Julian sat on the edge of his bed, pulling the sheets back and slowly climbing under them.

Logan stood in the middle of the room, contemplating Julian's offer. "Ok. It's a deal. But only because I still get to call you 'princess,' princess." He moved across the room and under the sheets that Julian held up for him.

The two snuggled together facing one another, being careful not to touch each other's painfully full bellies.

"You know what," Logan said. "This is not the way I thought our first time sharing a bed would go…"

Julian laughed softly, his stomach filling with pain at the movement. "If it makes you feel any better, this isn't how I planned it to go either. This whole night hasn't gone the way I expected."

They lay there looking into one another's eyes. "Next time, then?" Logan smirked, placing a kiss on the tip of Julian's nose.

"So there will be a next time?" Julian smiled. "That means the date went well, right?"

"Yeah. I guess it does… well except for the part where we ate enough strawberries to feed ten people and ended up sick… but yeah. There'll be a next time."

"Good." Julian snuggled in a little closer to Logan, who wrapped his arms gingerly around the shorter boy, holding him as close as possible without making either of them feel more nauseous.

Logan let out a contented sigh, his eyes shutting. "Good night, princess. Feel better in the morning."

Julian smiled, letting his eyes close. "Good night, squid. You too."

* * *

><p><strong>To be continued...<strong>

**A/N:** So that was some more fluff (I can't help myself haha). I hope you enjoyed it... because does anyone remember the end of Chapter 1? *runs for cover*


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Hello again :) Sorry this took me longer to post than I hoped. I've been busy with work. This is another longer chapter (and the return of the angst... with a bit of fluff of course). And just a heads up, the story switches from Logan's POV to Julian's POV throughout. I hope you enjoy :D

As always, thank you to everyone who reads this and/or reviews. I appreciate every single one of you.

And I created an OC for this chapter. He doesn't play a big part at all, I just needed another boy who lived in Stuart. The problem was, it couldn't be Logan or Derek and the only other character I know who lives in Stuart is Bailey. And for the purposes of the character I needed, Bailey didn't fit. I see him as being a very observant person (you'll see why that would be a problem when you read the chapter). So my OC's name is Greg. I'm sorry if you approve of him, but I feel like he needed to be included. He'll make another short appearance in Chapter 5 (I think, since I haven't even started that chapter yet...). Like I said, he really doesn't play too much of a role. I just needed a spacey character and I don't know of one that already exists in canon who lives in Stuart.

_**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._

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><p><strong>Chapter 4<strong>

The next morning, Logan opened his eyes to a bright, chilly room. The blinds were up and the window was open just enough to let in the cold morning air. Both had been forgotten last night while the boys were preoccupied with their stomach aches. It was then that Logan realized his stomach no longer hurt. _Good. Julian's probably feeling better too._ He lifted his head to check the clock on Julian's night stand. It was 8 in the morning. Logan sighed. _It's way too early to be awake on a day off of school… but I'm not tired. Great. Well I should wake up Jules, I guess._ He rolled over and his mouth turned up in a smile. Julian was on the other side of the bed with all of their blankets, head turned in Logan's direction, snoring softly. He was lying on his stomach; his left arm and leg were hanging off the edge of the bed. He was still sound asleep. Logan decided it was probably best to let the actor sleep. Julian had only started sleeping normally again two nights ago, after a month of almost no sleep to speak of. He still had a lot of sleep to catch up on.

_If I can't wake up Jules and I can't go back to sleep, what should I do now? _Logan leaned over and gently tucked a stray lock of brown hair behind the actor's ear. _Wow he's adorable when he's sleeping. _He shook his head to clear his thoughts_. Anyway, Hmm… Oh, I know! I'll go get changed and then get both of us breakfast… which we can eat in bed! Yes! Breakfast in bed! I love how my brain works sometimes. _

Logan grinned widely, set on his plan, and got out of bed_. I should probably leave a note so Jules doesn't freak out if he wakes up before I get back._ Logan glanced around the room and saw an open notebook and a pen sitting on the actor's desk. He walked over and ripped a blank page out, scrawling a quick note. He folded it and placed it on the pillow where his head had lain just a moment before.

Logan looked down at the sleeping boy for another minute and then turned around. He quietly opened the door and slipped off down the hall to his room.

* * *

><p>Julian awoke and groggily looked at his alarm clock. It was a quarter past 8. He stretched, letting out a yawn, and his hand landed on the pillow beside him. Something crunched. Julian flipped onto his side and saw a folded piece of paper where the blond had been sleeping. He sat up and unfolded it.<p>

.

_Princess,_

_Gone to get ready. Didn't want to wake you. Be back soon with a surprise._

_~Your Squid_

_._

Julian lied back on his bed and let out a contented sigh. A slight breeze and warm sunshine came in from his barely open window. _My stomach feels better, I got another full night's sleep, it's a beautiful day out, and the boy I love is going to bring me a surprise. I've only been up for a minute and I already know this is going to be a good day._ Julian was smiling so widely that his cheeks hurt. He couldn't remember the last time he had been this happy.

Getting out of bed, Julian gathered a change of clothes and headed to his bathroom. Hopefully he'd be ready by the time Logan got back with his surprise.

* * *

><p>Logan stepped out of his bathroom, toweling dry his hair. The grandfather clock in the hall chimed. Turning his head, Logan looked at his alarm clock. The display read "8:30am." As Logan rifled through his closet to find something to wear, it dawned on him. <em>It's Monday… of a three-day weekend… That means the dining hall doesn't open until 10. Shit. What do I do now?<em> He could wait until the dining hall opened, but that would mean sitting around for an hour and a half, doing nothing. He could go back to Julian's room and hang out… but what if Julian wasn't awake yet? Plus, Logan had promised a surprise when he returned. He couldn't go back without anything… That left him with the same answer; He'd be waiting an hour and a half for the dining hall to open. _Maybe we have something in the kitchen... Yeah, that's what I'll do. Hopefully there's cereal or something, because I'm not cooking. That's just a fire waiting to happen…_ _and I _really_ don't want to deal with that this early in the morning._

Changing quickly, Logan headed down to the Stuart kitchen. He started a pot of coffee and began searching the kitchen for food. He opened the cabinets above the sink. All he saw was coffee. He opened the cabinets under the counters. More coffee. He crossed the kitchen and angrily tore open the pantry door. Mountains and mountains of coffee.

Logan threw up his hands. "Seriously? What the hell? Don't we have _any_ food in this place?" _I mean, I know we're all addicted to coffee, but really? This is freakin' ridiculous!_ He rifled through the bags and tins of coffee beans and grounds. Through the sea of brown and black packaging came a flash of color and a cartoon rabbit. _Yes!_ His hand flew to the back of the pantry, retrieving the box of cereal. It was probably stale, but, hey, it was food that didn't require Logan setting the kitchen on fire in order to eat. He turned and opened the fridge. He knew they had a few cartons of milk to go with all the coffee the Stuarts consumed daily. Logan sifted through the kitchen once more, looking for bowls. He didn't find any. _Of course. Why would we have bowls in a kitchen anyway? _Logan gave an aggravated groan. All he could find was coffee mugs, dozens of coffee mugs. He let out another groan. _Fine. Close enough._ He grabbed four coffee mugs and opened one of the drawers, grabbing four spoons as well. He scanned the kitchen and saw a tray. _Perfect. I can carry it all up at once. _ He placed the mugs, fresh pot of coffee, cereal, milk, and spoons on it. He located the bowl of sugar on the counter and placed it on the tray as well. Logan looked down at the strange assortment of food and dishes before him. _This is possibly the saddest excuse of a breakfast in all of existence. But at least I tried… so Jules better appreciate it._ Logan was beaming as he carefully picked up the tray and headed back upstairs to the actor's room.

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><p>Julian stepped out of his bathroom and was met by a strong gust of wind blowing through his room. Homework and scripts flew through the air and pages flipped in the open math book on his desk. He looked around the room and saw the source of his problem: the window was wide open. <em>Was that completely open earlier? I thought I had only left it open a crack... Whatever. I probably just didn't notice. The wind probably just picked up or something.<em> He walked across the room and closed the window. Gathering the papers that now lay scattered all over the floor, he straightened them into a neat pile and placed them in a stack on his desk. Sticking out of the stack was a folded piece of notebook paper. Julian pulled it out to place it on top of the pile until he noticed it was the note Logan had left him earlier. He unfolded it and read it over again. It was a simple note, but it meant a lot to Julian. It was the first piece of tangible evidence that Logan cared about him. He grinned, refolding the note, and slipped it into his pocket.

Julian sat down on his bed to wait for Logan to return. His mind began to wander as he thought about his relationship with Logan, both as a friend and a romantic interest. He thought of the note folded in his pocket; that he was waiting here, in his room, for the boy he loved to come back with a surprise; of the amazing night they had just shared. _This is all too good to be true!_

Lying down, Julian stared up at the ceiling, thinking further back in time, to a time where things hadn't been so happy... like a few months ago… He thought back Logan always just looking through him, how Logan had pushed him into every piece of furniture imaginable, all the scars and bruises, both visible and invisible, he had received as a result.

Julian flipped over on his side. His wide grin was slowly falling into a frown. He and Logan hadn't talked about what had suddenly changed the blond's mind about Julian. He had just accepted this new reality without explanation and now he wondered what had caused it. _What could possibly ever make Logan change his mind about me, make him suddenly like me?... Oh my god, maybe this _is_ too good to be true…_

More memories flashed through Julian's mind, of Logan always loving someone else, of doing so much for Logan and receiving only almost nothing in return. _Why did Logan's feelings change so suddenly?_ Come to think of it, it seemed to Julian that Logan's feelings for him had practically changed overnight… _Are Logan's feelings even real then? How could they be real…? How could something that appears so suddenly be real?_ Maybe Logan only _thought_ he liked Julian, only once he had figured out the actor liked _him_. Or maybe Julian was just another Kurt, someone to chase after (although he didn't have to chase very hard). Maybe Logan only hung around like this so someone would like him back for a change… _Why didn't I see any of this as a possibility before?_ Tears were starting to well in his eyes. _Why hadn't I noticed? Logan just _thinks_ he likes me, if he even likes me at all… I'm just another challenge to him... I knew this was too good to be true!_

Julian thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a wood floor creaking. He flipped over to face the door. "Lo?" Nothing.

He got up from the bed, headed to the door and opened it. He was met by the empty hallway. _Weird. I'm imagining things today. First the window, now noises… Maybe I should take a nap, just a short one._ He decided that, although he had gotten plenty of sleep last night and had only been up for half an hour now, he was still severely sleep deprived. (Also, the Twins didn't call him the Cheshire Cat for nothing; The boy loved his sleep.) _Lack of sleep._ _That's probably why I'm imagining things._ He needed to clear his mind too… _Maybe I can figure out how Lo actually feels about me while I sleep, like, subconsciously or something. If not, then maybe after I wake up… Because if he doesn't like me… I need to put some distance between us._ It was better to figure this all out now before Julian got too involved, before his heart shattered instead of only broke. Julian pinched the bridge of his nose. _God, I hope I'm wrong… I really hope I'm just over-thinking all of this._

Still holding back tears, Julian closed the door and returned to bed. As he started to doze off, he heard the floor creak again. _Just ignore it, Larson. It's probably Logan. I can deal with him later. For now, I'm just going to sleep._ Sleep came surprisingly quickly to his frenzied mind as the floor creaked once more.

* * *

><p>Logan came to Julian's door. He wasn't able to knock since his hands were busy holding the tray of food. So he called out, hoping Julian was already awake. "Hey Jules. You awake? I'm back with your surprise!"<p>

He was met by silence. _Great he's still asleep_. Logan attempted to balance the tray on one arm to free up a hand to knock on the door. Hopefully that would wake up the actor. He knocked again. "Jules. Wake up. It's Logan."

More silence. _What am I thinking? That guy's practically in a coma when he sleeps._ He had to think of a better way to wake up the actor. He tried kicking the door. "JULES! WAKE UP!" _Good thing there's only one other person on the floor this weekend. Cuz they are going to be so mad at me for waking them up… Oh well, they can deal._

Logan finally heard movement come from behind the door. "Jules, you awake now? Let me in before I drop your surprise!"

"Go away."

Logan was confused. "Are you ok Jules? Are you still sick or something. Cuz I can-"

"Go away!" Julian's voice wavered slightly. Logan almost didn't catch it.

"I'm not going anywhere. Something's obviously wrong. What do you need?"

"For you to go _away_!" Julian practically screamed at Logan through the door.

Logan was taken aback. What was up with Julian? "I'm not going anywhere, Jules! I want to help! I care about you… a lot."

"Go away Wright! You can't help and you don't actually care! You don't actually like me! You never have and you never will."

"Are we seriously doing this again? Now I _know_ something's wrong! Just tell me what's going on!" Tears were springing up in Logan's eyes. _What the hell's wrong with you, Jules? You know I care about you!... I _love_ you for heaven's sakes!_ He took a collective breath, attempting to ward off the tears and the inevitable rage he could feel on the edges of his mind. He kicked the door. "LET ME IN! TELL ME WHAT'S WRONG! Stop being such a diva for once!" Logan kicked the door again, this time even harder, leaving a dent in the hard wood. "I really, really care about you! I really do! And I'll do anything to fix what's bothering you because… because... hell, because, I _love_ you, Jules! I haven't told you yet, but I realized I loved you 2 weeks ago. I realized that I cared about you as more than a friend. But now, looking back, I think I've loved you since the day I met you, that day at freshman orientation… it just took something like a stalker to make me realize it. I wish I could say I realized it all on my own… but does it really matter how I figured it out? I love you Jules. I love you more than anything else in this world! Now tell me _what's_ WRONG!" Logan gasped. His heart was racing and his face was flushed. _Shit._ _Did I really just say that out loud? Everyone in Stuart probably heard that… SHIT! _They'd have to deal with serious damage control later.

There was a little more movement behind the door… and then a response. "Well… I h-hate you!" Julian's voice wavered again.

"That didn't sound too convincing, Larson. Say that like you mean it!" Logan screamed, slamming the tray of food into the door. The box of cereal fell to the floor and the mugs clanked together.

"I. _Hate_. You. I've thought about everything… and I _hate_ you. No matter how amazing last night was, you've caused me too much pain for us to ever work out. There's nothing you could possibly do to make all that up to me. So I hate you! Happy? Now go away!"

"What. The. _Hell_. You prick! I just told you I love you and… and _you tell me you hate me_? I know you don't mean that! You're just upset. Now tell me what's really wrong! Is it your stalker or something? Because you _promised_ me you'd tell me if anything else happened! So just spill it Larson!" Logan was screaming so loud now that he was straining his voice. _Who cares who hears this. It needs to be said and Jules needs to listen!_ He was met with silence. Logan's eyes were welling with tears again and rage was beginning to bubble up inside him. He tried to push all his emotions back down. It wasn't working. _I need to get to my room before I explode._ "C-come find me when you're ready to talk." Logan barely got the words out before he felt his rage take over.

He made it to his room, slamming the door shut and dropping the tray of food to the floor with a loud crash. The mugs and sugar bowl broke on impact, sending chunks of ceramic scattering across the hardwood. The coffee pot shattered, drenching his area rug in the dark brown liquid. Logan stormed around his room, sweeping papers and books off his desk, knocking over lamps, kicked the tray of food, and throwing his alarm clock into the wall. He threw everything he laid eyes on. Nothing was safe.

As his anger ebbed, Logan gave into his tears. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried this hard. _Jules doesn't love me. Jules doesn't _love_ me_, he repeated to himself. A part of him was convinced it wasn't true. It just didn't make sense. Why would Julian suddenly change his mind about liking him? But the rest of his thoughts overshadowed that. _Jules said he hates me. I knew I wasn't good enough for him! It was just a matter of time before he realized it. I was hoping for more than two days… but at least I got that much…_ Logan's body shook has he tried to inhale through his tears. He curled up on his bed and cried until he had no more tears. _I love you Jules, even if you do hate me, I love you and always will._

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><p>Julian sat in his desk chair. Tears were streaming down his face. "I. <em>Hate<em>. You. I've thought about everything… and I _hate_ you. No matter how amazing last night was, you've caused me too much pain for us to ever work out. There's nothing you could possibly do to make all that up to me. So I hate you! Happy? Now go away!"

"Just like that. Exactly. That was perfect, Julian." The boy whispered in his ear after having mouthed along with the speeches he had written for the actor. He stood behind the actor, holding a knife to his back through the spaces in the chair. Julian's hands were bound tightly with rope in front of him.

"What. The. _Hell_. You prick! I just told you I love you and… and _you tell me you hate me_? I know you don't mean that! You're just upset. Now tell me what's really wrong! Is it your stalker or something? Because you _promised_ me you'd tell me if anything else happened! So just spill it Larson!" There was a pause on the other side of the door. "C-come find me when you're ready to talk." Julian heard Logan's retreating footsteps.

_No. No! Lo, come b__ack! __I love you! You idiot. Why would you believe any of that?… I LOVE YOU!... And I know you love me too. I can't believe I ever doubted that… No. No. No! Where are you going? Come back. COME BACK!... Oh no. What have I done? What the hell have I done?_ Tears were coming full force down the actor's face.

"There's no need to cry. You're safe now." The boy caressed Julian's cheek. The actor flinched at the contact. "If it's about the knife, you know I would never use it to kill you."

Julian had been ambushed by someone during his nap. This boy was obviously his stalker. The noises he had heard, the open window, they had all been him. Julian had still yet to see his capture's face. _But his voice sounds so familiar…_ Julian listened to him talk a little more. _No… It can't be…_ "Then why have the knife at all… Adam?"

The Hanover boy chuckled. "Isn't it obvious? You're confused! And since you're confused, you might try to resist me helping you. I need you not to fight this. The knife is a little assurance that you don't do anything that might compromise my plan."

"And what might that be?" Julian tried to buy himself time. Maybe he could figure a way out of this… maybe Logan would come back. _Please Lo. Please just come back. Break down the door like you're always threatening to! Save me! You need to know that I love you… you need to know, just in case..._ Julian didn't want to finish that thought. He didn't want to think about what might happen to him in the hands of Adam. But Julian knew Logan was probably in his room right now, leaving Julian alone like he had asked. _Why do you pick now to finally listen to me? Just come back. Come back!_

"I'm going to make you realize how much better I am for you than that blond psychopath. I'm going to make you love me and forget all about Logan." Julian could hear the distain that Adam used when saying the Prefect's name.

"Logan is and always will be the only person I love!" As he finished the sentence, Julian felt the knife on his back twitch, breaking the skin. Julian let out a gasp.

"Sorry about that. Negative reinforcement will do wonders though. It's going to be ok. I'm going to make you forget all about him. He'll never hurt you again." Adam gently rubbed Julian's shoulder. "Now come on. Let's get out of here. The further away we are from Dalton, the easier it'll be for you to forget." The Hanover put one hand under Julian's armpit and lifted the boy out of the chair, knife still to his back. He picked up a jacket from the floor and draped it over Julian's rope-tied hands, so no one would become suspicious. Adam forced Julian out the door.

A red-headed boy stuck his head out of a door down the hall, bleary eyed. Adam positioned himself so it looked as if he was just walking behind Julian out of the building, not forcing him out at knife point.

"Oh, hey Julian… and Adam, right?" The unsuspecting boy smiled and waved at the pair, hand moving to rub the sleep from his eyes.

The knife nudged Julian's back, signaling him to speak. "Hey… Greg, right?" The red-head nodded.

"So what was all the racket about? You and Logan get in a fight again?"

"Y-yeah. Sorry if we woke you up." _See the knife. God, please, just see the knife!_

"That's ok. I'm use to it…" Greg trailed off. "So. Where are you two going?"

"Oh, uh." _Great. Improv. I suck at improv._ "We're-we're going out for breakfast."

"Ok. Have fun." Greg smiled and waved at the pair before ducking back into his room and closing the door.

"Nice job again Julian. You are such a good actor! That's why I love you so much." Adam rubbed his free hand up and down Julian's arm in what he thought was a loving gesture. It just made the actor's stomach churn. "Now, let's go"

That had been the second confession of love Julian had received in a matter of minutes. But this second confession did not make Julian's heart do funny things. It made him want to get even further away from the guy. Julian needed to figure out a way to get out of this situation and get back to that first boy. He needed to hold him in his arms and show him how much he was loved in return.

The actor and the Hanover headed out of Stuart and across the Dalton lawns. _Maybe I can try making a run for it… but from what I've seen during gym, Adam is _fast_… he'll just tackle me to the ground in a second… I could scream for help... But that'll probably get me stabbed… I can probably get out of this if someone else passes by._ _If I move just the right way so they see the knife… and then conveniently drop my jacket so they see my hands… maybe they can at least find help._

But the campus was like a ghost town on long weekends. The pair made it to the parking lot without seeing a single soul. Everyone was either still sleeping or home for the weekend. They approached an old blue pick-up truck. The Hanover opened the passenger's side door and forced Julian into the seat, buckling him in. Adam slammed the door, practically skipping around the car and took his own seat behind the wheel. "Ready to go, sweetie?" Adam grabbed Julian's hand and gave it a little squeeze. The actor yanked it out of the Hanover's grip. "Don't worry. Once my plan is complete, you're going to be the one reaching for my hand." Adam jumped a little out of excitement. "It's going to be great, just you wait!" He started up the truck and they drove out of the parking lot. Julian watched in the side view mirror as Dalton became a dot in the distance and then finally disappeared, his last shred of hope and any chance of ever seeing the boy he loved again disappearing with it.

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><p><strong>To be continued<strong>

**A/N:** So I'm not really sure how to categorize this fic. It's defiantly romance, but I'm not quite sure what else... is it angst, drama, suspense? This chapter sets the tone for the rest of the chapters to come, so if any of you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them :)


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Hello everyone! Sorry this chapter took so long. Between work and life, I haven't had as much time to write/edit as I would like. As always, thank you to everyone who has read this story up to this point :) I appreciate every single one of you and your reviews keep me writing. I hope you enjoy chapter 5!

And I make a few references to the original fic "A Little Unconventional" in this chapter, so if you haven't read that for some reason, it can be found on my profile page (it's the only other story I have right now). This is the **sequel** to that story, so if you haven't read the original, I would get on that haha

_**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._

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><p><strong>Chapter 5<strong>

Derek walked up the stairs, dragging his suitcase behind him. It had been a long weekend. His aunt, who had moved to Russia before Derek was even born, had unexpectedly paid a visit to the States for the weekend. Since Derek had never met her, his parents insisted he come home. Despite his pleading, they hadn't taken 'No' for an answer. So Derek had packed up his bag and caught the earliest plane home.

Once he had successfully lugged his suitcase up the stairs, Derek went straight to Julian's door. He knocked, and without waiting for a response, started talking. "Hey Jules. I'm back. I know I said I wouldn't leave again but my aunt came to visit from out of the country and my parents were threatening to come to Dalton and drag me home if I didn't see her. I just figured since you and Logan were talking again that you'd be ok for a weekend. But once I got home, I realized how stupid a thought that was. I was like 'Shit. Logan and Julian are probably destroying Stuart right now and scaring all the other boarders while I'm here eating dinner with a woman I've never met. I'm an idiot. What was I thinking leaving those two alone after everything that's happened?' Ok… yeah, I'm babbling… I guess what I'm trying to say is, are you ok or did Logan try to kill you while I was gone?"

The athlete was met by silence from the other side of the door. "Jules?… Jules, are you ok? Are you even in there?" Again, no sound came from behind the door. _Hmm. He's probably sleeping… or maybe he's hanging out with Logan._ Derek turned and headed down the hall to the room where the Stuart Prefect lived. "Hey Logan? Julian? You in there? I just got back. I wanted to check to make sure you guys were ok." At first, Derek was met by silence once more. Just as he was about to go look around the building for any sign of his friends, he heard movement from inside the room.

"Go away." The voice was muffled, but it was definitely Logan's.

"Hey, Lo." Derek wasn't fazed by the greeting. In the language of Logan, 'Go away' meant 'Hey, come on in!' "Is Julian in here with you?" He turned the door knob, not waiting for permission to enter.

Derek stopped in his tracks when he laid eyes on Logan's room. _Everything_ was destroyed. What once was had been the Prefect's room was now a disaster zone. Logan was lying face down on his bed.

"Whoa… what happened while I was gone?" The blond on the bed mumbled something, but Derek didn't really care what it was. He had a pretty good idea of what had happened. "You had a fight with Julian didn't you? What is _wrong_ with you, Logan? You know what Julian's going through right now. He doesn't need your shit too! You are such an ass Log-"

Logan had turned over to face Derek. His eyes were rimmed red and bloodshot. Now that he wasn't face down on the pillow, Derek could hear his uneven breathing. With a rattled breath, Logan interrupted. "Don't you think I _know_ that! _He_ started this. That bastard started this!" Logan inhaled sharply. "He hates me. I told him I loved him and-and he said he h-hates me!" Tears were starting to form again as his eyes widened. Logan hadn't even thought before speaking, only now realizing what he had just said.

Both boys looked at each other in shock. _Did I just hear that right? Did Logan just tell me that he loves Julian? I mean, I already knew that… I just figured he'd never say it out loud._

Logan was the first to break out of his trance, speaking more to himself than to Derek. "Shit. Y-you did _not_ just hear that. I didn't just say that. Not in f-front of you. N-no. I know I said it earlier… but e-everyone was still asleep. No one actually heard it. But… b-but… No!" Logan tore at his hair and flopped face down on the bed. Tears were starting to break free and flow down his cheeks one by one as the blond continued to ramble on. "I didn't just say t-that out loud! Shit!"

Logan felt the bed dip next to him. A firm hand grasped his shoulder. "Logan. Logan, it's fine. Really it's ok. Calm down." The hand moved to Logan's back, rubbing comforting circles. "Logan, if it makes you feel better, I already knew. I already knew you two liked each other."

The blond's head rose to look at Derek. "How the h-hell did you already k-know?"

Derek continued to rub circles on Logan's back, trying to calm the Prefect down further. "Well I already knew about Julian. He told me awhile ago… well, actually, I figured it out; he just confirmed it."

Logan shifted onto his side, supporting his weight on his left elbow, and glared at Derek. "That d-doesn't explain how you k-know about the both of us."

"Umm… The other day, when Julian ran off while we were doing our homework, the day you were singing in your room… I might have overheard your conversation." Derek saw something flash in Logan's eyes. That was not a good sign. "Whoa there. I only went to your room to make sure neither of you was going to strangle the other. I left as soon as you two confessed to each other. Don't worry." _Ok, so I may have hung around a little longer… but he doesn't need to know that. I'd rather not get a black eye right now. _

Logan calmed down slightly at this statement. "Fine. I'll just l-let it go for now." Derek could see he had barely escaped certain doom at the hands of the blond, but only because Logan was too preoccupied with something else to pay much attention to Derek.

"So Julian… he said he hates you? That doesn't sound like him at all. The guy's loved you for _three years_. He wouldn't change his mind after finding out you feel the same way." Derek could see the wheels turning in Logan's head as he processed this information.

"That's what I thought too… at first. But he said that he had thought everything over. Jules said that I'd hurt him too much and no matter what I did I could never make it up to him." Logan flipped over so that he was lying on his back. "He's right you know… I know I don't deserve him. I'm just glad he finally figured it out. Now he can move on and find someone who would actually make him happy."

Derek looked down at Logan. "What has gotten into you? You never give up like this. When things get hard, you're always the one who fights back. You love a challenge." The athlete waited for a response. All he got was the other boy flipping onto his side to face away from him. Derek sighed. "You are such an idiot Logan. Julian was probably overacting to something. This all has to be just some big misunderstanding." Derek stood up, grabbing Logan's upper arm and pulled him upright. "Come on. Let's go talk to Julian. We're going to get this all settled so you two can go back to making out… or whatever you guys have been doing."

Unwillingly, Logan followed Derek out of his room and down the hall to the actor's door. "You know this isn't going to help right? Julian was serious. He-"

"Oh _shut up_ Logan! The man loves you! Get over yourself and let's get this settled before you both drive me even crazier than you already do." Derek raised his hand and knocked on the door. "Julian, open up. It's Derek again. We need to talk!" Once again, he was met by silence. He knocked harder, jiggling the door knob. "Jules! Open the door!" Nothing. He turned to Logan, who was leaning up against the wall behind him, hands in his pockets, staring into the open air. "Stay here. I'll be right back." Derek walked to his room and began to search through his desk drawers. It took a while, but he finally spotted what he had been looking for. A white plastic card appeared between his various papers and notebooks. Julian had given him a spare key to his room after the Fair incident so he could come and go as he pleased to watch over the actor. Derek pulled it out of the drawer triumphantly and walked back to the actor's door.

Derek swiped the card and the lock clicked. He placed a hand on the door knob and opened the door slowly, in case the Julian was sleeping rather than ignoring them. Logan pushed himself off the wall and followed Derek into the room. Derek flicked the lights on to reveal Julian's room. It was a disaster. The room was nowhere near as bad as Logan's room, but messier than Julian kept it even during the worst days of his self-imposed house-arrest… and Julian was nowhere to be found._ What happened? _was the only thought to cross both Derek and Logan's minds as they stood in the doorway. Logan entered further into the room, heading to the bathroom to check for Julian there. Just as Logan left Derek's sight, something else caught his attention from the hallway.

"Hey, you. Freshman." Derek leaned out of the room to catch the attention of the boy he had seen pass by.

"Yeah?" Greg answered, wrapped in a towel and carrying a shower caddy. He stopped and turned to face Derek.

"You were here this morning right? Like, you stayed the weekend?"

"Yeah. I was here… Why?"

"I was just wondering if you've seen Julian today. We're looking for him and he's not in his room."

Greg thought for a second. "Yeah! I saw him… leaving with some other guy."

"Do you know who the other guy was?"

"Oh. What was his name? Hmm… Mike, Jeff… no that's not it… Rob, Alex. Oh. It started with an A! Ummm… Adam! That's it. Adam, that new guy from Hanover. Julian left with Adam this morning. They said they were going to get breakfast. Probably a good idea, you know, get Julian out of here for a while, after his fight with Logan and all." Greg pointed into the room to where Logan was now standing back in the main bedroom. Derek looked back at Logan and saw that he was staring intently at something on the bed. The blond's face was in complete shock. _This isn't good._

Greg looked into the room. "Wow. What happened in here? You two must have been really going at it. I can't believe I slept through most of it. Ooo. What's that on the bed?" The red head took a step through the doorway.

Derek held his arm out, blocking the freshman's way. He forcefully turned the boy around by the shoulders and pushed him into the hallway. "Thanks. Now… go shower or whatever. Don't forget to scrub behind your ears. Eat your vegetables. Get good grades. Have a nice life." Derek slammed the door shut on a rather confused looking boy.

Derek walked over to stand beside Logan and looked down at the bed where a leaf of notebook paper lay. The page had a message on it in what looked like blood. Next to the note was a crushed rose. "No…" Derek leaned over and picked up the note, reading it over once. Blood. A rose. This could only mean one thing.

"What is it?" Logan asked. He was too frozen in fear to have even read the note yet, but he had a feeling he knew what it was about.

"It's the stalker Lo… and from what Greg said… I think it's Adam. I think Julian's stalker is Adam, Logan… He-he's got Julian… a-and the note's addressed to you." Derek shakily handed the note to Logan, who was whiter than the sheet of paper he now held.

As Logan read over the note, somehow, his face grew even whiter. The only thing he managed to get out was "Jules," before he collapsed on his knees and broke down in tears.

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><p>The blue pickup truck pulled over on a deserted road. Adam put the truck into park and turned to face Julian. Pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket, the Hanover calmly stated, "Ok. I'm going to have to blindfold you now. I want where we're going to be a surprise." A smile appeared on Adam's face as he leaned over to tie the fabric around the actor's head. Julian leaned away, putting his weight on the car door. "Come on now. Don't make me do anything drastic. I really don't want to hurt you." Adam leaned forward further as Julian pushed against the car door, attempting to get as far away from the other boy as possible.<p>

There was a loud bang as the lock of the old pickup truck gave way. However, the door was still intact. Julian toppled backwards. If it hadn't been for the seat belt he wore, the actor would have hit the dirt below. Both boys froze for a moment. Julian made the first move. _Now's my chance!_ He began to squirm out of the seat belt, successfully getting free of the shoulder restraint. Julian continued to wiggle, trying to free himself of the lap portion of the belt. His bound hands were not helping.

That's when Adam snapped back into reality. He unbuckled his own belt and flung open the driver's side door. He raced around the front of the truck and grabbed Julian's shoulders, forcing him back into the cab and slamming the door shut. Julian stared at the other boy with wide eyes. Adam returned to his seat and closed his own door. "Now, now. That wasn't a smart idea. You could have hurt yourself if you had hit your head on the ground." He leaned down and pulled the knife from where he had been keeping it under his seat. Adam turned to Julian, pointing the knife at him. "Now, are you going to let me tie the handkerchief on or are we going to have to resort to alternate measures." He gave the knife a wiggle.

Julian visibly swallowed and leaned forward. "You're a sick bastard," his voice dripping with distain.

Adam placed the knife in his lap and tied the cloth around Julian's eyes. "_Tsk. _Oh, you don't mean that sweetie." Adam leaned back after finishing his knot, placing the knife back under his seat, "Be nice or no dinner later." He shifted in his seat, facing forward and putting the truck into drive.

Julian sat in the passenger's seat, now blinded to the world around him. With nothing else to distract him, the actor's thoughts drifted. _I wish there was some way I could have known Adam was my stalker. I was such an idiot for not noticing! It was so obvious. The guy's an overly clingy fanboy. None of this would have ever happened if I had just opened my damn eyes. I'd be in my bed right now… with Logan. Logan. I'd give anything to see you one last time. Just. One. More. Time. _Images of the blond filled his mind, bringing comfort to Julian. He still clung to the hope that someone would find him. He needed to see Logan again. Tears were falling from Julian's eyes, being soaked up by the handkerchief on his face. He surely would have given up all hope by now if it weren't for Logan. Hope was the only thing that would get Julian through this now. It's all he had left.

With his thoughts preoccupied, Julian didn't notice the truck had come to a stop until he heard the engine turn off and Adam open his door. A few seconds later, the door next to him opened and his seatbelt was unbuckled. Hands grabbed his upper arm and something cold pressed lightly against his back. Julian was hoisted out of his seat and led across what felt like pavement. After a few steps, what sounded like doors were opened and he felt carpet underfoot. He was yanked back slightly. "Stop for a sec." Julian heard a click, whirring, and then a soft 'ding' as something slid open. Adam urged him forward once more and he heard the sliding noise again. He felt movement. _This must be an elevator. I'm in a building of some kind then. _ A few seconds passed until the bell rang to signal the elevator had arrived at the correct floor. Julian was led through the doors and down more carpeted floors. He heard a door open and was forced forward a few more steps before being yanked backwards again.

"We're here!" Adam exclaimed excitedly, removing Julian's blindfold.

It took a second for Julian's eyes to adjust to the dim light. When they did, he surveyed his surroundings. Cobweb laden cubicles were scattered around the room, quite obviously not in their original positions. The carpet was dingy and was the color of the numerous stains that had been left over the years. The only windows in the room, which lined the wall opposite them, were crusted with years of dust, only letting in a few shafts of sunlight. _This must be an abandoned office building_, Julian thought.

Adam, who still had his hand on Julian's arm, led him into a windowless side room. Without windows, it was almost pitch black in the room. The small amount of light coming in from the main office through the open door allowed Julian to just make out the room. All that was left in the room was an old chair and desk. The Hanover led the actor to the chair and sat him down. Adam pulled a length of rope out of his pocket and used it to bind Julian around the waist to the chair. As he finished the knot, Adam stood up and patted Julian on the shoulder. "Alright. That should do it. You'll be nice and cozy here." He took a few steps towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Sure Julian was happy that Adam was leaving, but he'd rather not be left for dead in a creepy office building.

Adam turned slightly to look back a Julian. "Aww. You already miss me." _That's not what I meant you creep_, Julian thought. He dared not say it out loud. Adam was still holding the knife. "Don't worry. I'm just going to get us some dinner. We have some things to talk about when I get back." Julian was pretty sure he saw Adam smile as the boy left the room and closed the door. A click came from where Adam had just stood. _Where the hell did he get the key to an office that looks like it's been closed for a decade? Great. Well there goes plan 'A.'_ Julian had been planning to make a run for it, despite the chair attached to his waist. That plan went out the window as soon as he knew the door was locked. _Well I guess I'll just have to sit and wait. Maybe I'll think of another way to escape while he's gone._

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><p>The door creaked open. Julian didn't know how much time had passed since Adam had left, but from the absence of any light coming from the now open door, it had been a while.<p>

"Hey there sweetie. I picked up a few things and brought us Chinese. I hope that's ok." Adam came in dragging a chair, a large brown paper bag, a pillow, and an electric camping lantern. He placed the bag of food and lantern on the desk, pulling out two take out containers and turning the light on. Julian blinked against the sudden brightness in the room. Adam opened a container of food and placed it in front of Julian, handing the boy a pair of chopstick. Hesitating a few moments, the actor took the chopstick in his still bound hands. "Sorry it's going to be hard to eat with your hands tied… but I can't take the risk of untying you just yet. Don't want you doing anything silly again." Adam ruffled Julian's hair before sitting in the chair he had brought to the room and started to devour his own box of food.

Julian stared down at what looked like some kind of chicken. _I shouldn't give Adam the satisfaction of eating this._ Then his stomach growled. Loudly. He realized he hadn't eaten all day because he had fallen asleep before eating breakfast… and then gotten kidnapped. He needed to eat something. Starving himself wouldn't help him escape. Julian maneuvered his chopsticks awkwardly with his tied hands and began to pick at his food, scooting it around the container to make it look like he had eaten more than he had.

After just enough mouthfuls to stave off his growling stomach, Julian placed his chopsticks on the table. Adam looked up from taking the last piece of pork from his box. "Done already? Are you sure you don't want anymore?" Adam looked concerned.

"Yeah. I'm done." Julian pushed the container away from him and looked at the wall.

"Ok. I'll save this for later." Adam scooped up the mostly full container of food, closed it, and placed it with the chopsticks within Julian's reach. "Now that we've eaten," Adam sat back down in his chair, scooting closer to Julian, who leaned away, "we can talk about some things."

"Like why we're here?" Julian suggested, shifting in his seat as much as his restraints would allow. He looked up and noticed the door was still open. _Do I even try? No. I'd never make it out of here with this chair strapped to me and Adam in the room. I need to think of another way out of this._

"Don't you remember? I already told you that, silly." Adam playfully swatted Julian's arm. "I need you to realize that you love me and not the blond _bastard_ you seem so fond of. And we're here specifically because, well, it's in the middle of nowhere far from Dalton. No distractions. Just you and me, sweetie."

"And what if I don't go along with you little plan?" He was curious as to what his fate would be. Julian had no intentions of ever loving the boy sitting next to him.

"We'd have a problem then, wouldn't we? Let's try not to think of that too much."

"But what if I don't?"

"If you never love me… well, I-I'd have to kill you of course." Julian's stomach dropped. Adam rubbed his arm comfortingly, which didn't help the situation for Julian in the slightest. "If I can't have your love, than nobody can. Don't you see? It's what's best for everyone." Adam stood up from his chair. "But there is a small exception to that, where I'll let you be without me. That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about."

"An exception?" Thoughts and ideas were starting to click together in Julian's mind as another plan started to come together.

"Logan is involved."

At the sound of Logan's name, Julian's head snapped up. "Don't you dare hurt him!"

"As long as he does as he's told, I won't lay a finger on him. I've left him some breadcrumbs back at Dalton. If he can follow them here before Friday at noon, then he must really love you. I hate to say it, but I'd let you choose between me and the psychopath, if he shows of course… though I doubt it. We're pretty well hidden." Adam picked up the pillow from the floor and placed it in front of Julian on the desk. He then made his way to the door. "And you'll pick me over that blond by Friday anyways. So I'm not worried for us in the slightest."

"Why Friday?" Julian had a plan.

"Oh, right, I forgot to tell you. Friday we're leaving Ohio. I couldn't get us out any sooner. You know what I keep saying. The further we are from _him_, the better this will work. So good night, my love. See you in the morning." Adam closed the door, the lock clicking as he turned the key.

It was Monday night. That meant Logan had a little less than four days to find him. _I know you can do it Logan. I'm counting on you. Because the only way my plan is going to work is if you get to me before Friday._ Julian placed his head on the pillow in front of him. _You're going to find me. I know you can. You have to._ He drifted into a restless sleep.

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><p><strong>To be continued<strong>

**A/N:** So I realized as I was editing that the office building, which is abandoned and has no electricity, has a working elevator. I literally faceplamed…But I just left it. I didn't feel like trying to make Julian go up stairs blindfolded and I didn't want them on the first floor of the building. It's a magic elevator, ok! Also, Adam apparently keeps a lot of things in his pocket. A handkerchief. Rope. What is with this boy?


	6. Chapter 6

****This is the sequel to "A Little Unconventional"**  
><strong>(I thought I'd mention it again, because after I mentioned this in my A/N last chapter, there was a spike in readers for the original... which I think you should all at least skim before reading this fic. Also, I'm going to go make this clearer in chapter 1, so if you have this fic on alert, that's the update there.)

**A/N: **So this chapter is a little shorter than what I have previously written. I was originally going to add a little Julian in this chapter, but I realized I still needed to catch Logan and Derek up in the story timeline (in chapter 5, we left Logan/Derek off on Monday morning and Julian off late Monday night/early Tuesday morning). Never fear, there will be some more Julian in the chapters to come.

Also, in case anyone is confused on the timeline for this story, I made a list. The first few chapters of "A Little Unconventional" took place over the course of about a month before "A Little Unexpected" starts.

Timeline so far  
><strong>Friday<strong>: Unconventional Ch 4  
><strong>Saturday<strong>: Unconventional Ch 5; Ch 1 and 2  
><strong>Sunday<strong>: Ch 3  
><strong>Monday<strong>: Ch 4, 5, 6

As always, I love your reviews :) I've said this before, but this is the first time I've written anything like this, so your reviews are appreciated. Please keep them coming! And thank you for reading!

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><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

"Jules." Logan knelt on the floor in Julian's room, a sheet of notebook paper held loosely in his hand. Tears streamed down his face at an alarming rate as he fought to keep his breathing under control. The blond hugged himself with his free arm, trying to hold himself together. _This isn't happening. No. Not Julian. NOT MY JULES!_

Derek stood above Logan, unsure of what to do for his friend. Logan had been upset earlier, but this was the worst he had ever seen him. "L-lo?"

His friend's voice seemed to snap him out of the thoughts running through his head. He raised his hand to look at the paper. Through tear filled eyes, Logan read the red words, dark against the white of the page.

…

_Logan,_

_I've taken Julian. He would have never been happy with you. You've only ever caused him pain. You don't actually love him. _

_And by the way, thank you for not interfering earlier. You made my job so much easier. So I thought I'd repay the favor. _

_I'm not dumb. It's possible that you actually love Julian (although leaving him alone when he obviously wanted you is an awful way of showing it), so I'm giving you a chance to prove it._

_I've left clues here at Dalton that will lead you to us. In order to solve them, you must __love Julian as much as I do. If you can find him, he can leave with you. Unless, of course, he chooses to stay with me. And by the time you find us, I sure know who Julian will choose… and it's not you!_

_There is one rule to our little game: __No Help!_ _(that means the police, too!)_

_If I hear one police siren, Julian and I will run and not even the CIA will be able to find us then. And if we can't escape, I will not hesitate to kill Julian. If you cheat and I can't rightfully have him, then no one can. It'll be better for all of us that way. _

_If you accept this rule, here is the first clue:_

_**Julian has visited all 50 states. What was the 17**__**th**__** state he visited?  
><strong>__**To find the next clue, go where the birds sing.**_

_Adam_

_P.S. Oh and did I mention? There's a deadline. You have until noon this Friday to find Julian. After that, we will be far away from Ohio. You will NEVER find us then._

…

Logan visibly shuttered. He couldn't pull his eyes away from the phrase 'kill Julian.' He felt like he was going to be sick. Derek knelt down in front of his friend, placing his hands on the blond's shoulders, shaking him a little. "Lo? Lo. Speak to me." The athlete was starting to become scared at how unresponsive Logan was to any outside stimuli.

The Prefect looked up from the paper into his friend's eyes. He took a shaky breath. "J-julian actually loves me. He didn't m-mean anything he said earlier… and I-I left him… I left him when I could have s-saved him! If I h-had just called the police like I wanted to, none of this w-would have happened… or if I'd just g-gone into the room and c-confronted him earlier… I could have saved him, D-derek! _I COULD HAVE SAVED HIM_!" Logan slumped forward into Derek's chest. The athlete wrapped his arms around him as the blond cried into his shoulder. "It's a-all my fault!"

"It's _not_ your fault, Lo. You couldn't have known what was actually happening. There is absolutely no way you could have known Julian wasn't just having a freak out." Derek straightened Logan up, trying to look into his eyes.

The blond avoided eye contact. "If I had just-"

"Listen to me. There's _nothing_ you could have done. And there's nothing you can do about what happened. It's in the past, so stop wallowing." Logan looked up at Derek. "We are going to find him. You _are_ going to save him."

Logan stared at Derek for a few moments before responding. "Y-you're right. I can do this." Standing up, Logan's voice filled with confidence. "I'm going to solve these clues and get Julian way from that psychopath and then I'm going to kick Adam's sorry ass! That bastard is going to wish he was never born!" Logan was practically growling with anger.

"Now there's the Logan we all know and love!" Derek stood up as well, smiling and dusting off his pants. "So… where should we start? I'd say call the police or tell Ramsey, who would probably call the police. But according to the note, that'd only set us back even further."

"Well," Logan looked down at the note in his hands, "we only have about four days left, so we should probably get started on these clues." Looking up, his eyes scanned around the room. "Umm… can we go somewhere else first though, because…" Logan trailed off.

Derek saw the pained look in Logan's eyes. Being in the room where it all happened was too much. Derek was just as unsettled by the surroundings as Logan. "Yeah. Let's go to my room." The pair walked out of the actor's door, both taking a final glance over their shoulders as Derek closed the door.

When they got to Derek's room, the athlete sat down on his bed. "Ok. What's the first one again?"

Logan took a seat opposite his friend at the desk chair. "_Julian has visited all 50 states. What was the 17__th__ state he visited?_... What is this? Some kind of trivia game? How the hell is this supposed to prove that I love Julian? I didn't even know Julian's been to all 50 states, never mind the 17th he visited!" Logan was about to rip the note to shreds when he remembered that this piece of paper was his only means of finding the brunet. He couldn't destroy it, no matter how much he hated it.

"Adam _is_ a crazed fanboy… his love for Julian is based on facts that he's learned, not on who Julian really is. So using trivia questions as a measure of love makes sense in a delusional sort of way." Derek shrugged.

"Well that was deep… but it's not going to help me figure out Julian's travel history." An aggravated sigh left the Prefect's lips. "This is impossible."

"I have an idea. Not sure if you've heard of it, but there's this little thing called the internet. I'm sure the information's there. Adam had to learn it from somewhere." Leaning over, Derek grabbed his laptop from the foot of the bed.

Logan got up from his chair to sit next to Derek. "Smart ass," he said just quite enough so that Derek missed it all together.

Derek opened the computer and brought up a search engine. "Ok. Here goes nothing." Derek began to type in variations of the clue Adam had left into the search bar, scouring pages of results before trying a new entry.

Three hours passed. They hadn't found anything.

"You're doing it all wrong!" Logan was becoming aggravated by the non-existent progress they were making. His controlling nature wasn't helping either. "You have to put quotes around that or it won't work!" He jabbed the computer screen angrily. The computer teetered on Derek's lap.

"Hey! Don't touch the screen. And I'm doing the best I can!"

"Well it's not good enough!"

"Then get your own computer! Oh. Wait. You destroyed that this morning. Now let me do this. I know I can find it."

Logan stood up and began pacing the room. Somehow, he was succeeding in suppressing his rage… at least for the time being.

Unbeknownst to Logan, Derek took his suggestion and added quotes to his search. The first result read "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know but Were Too Afraid to Ask – Celebrity Edition: Julian Larson-Armstrong". _Well this looks promising_, Derek thought as he clicked the link. He began scanning through a list of facts about the actor.

A few minutes passed. Logan stopped pacing, turning to Derek. "You know what. I'm going to the library. I bet I can find something in five minutes while you sit here an-"

"FOUND IT!" Derek screamed, causing Logan to jump. The blond rushed over the bed, pulling the computer onto his lap. "Be careful with that! It's new."

Logan swatted Derek's arm and looked at the screen in front of him. There was a list of states, all in the order Julian had visited them. Scanning down the page, he found the one numbered 17. "Ohio? Really? It just _had_ to be obvious, didn't it." The blond pushed the computer back onto Derek's lap, who barely caught it. Derek quickly bookmarked the page (the website looked really helpful, but it had been a pain to find) before closing the laptop and placing it on his bed. "Is that supposed to mean Julian is in Ohio? That's unhelpful. We already knew that. Adam said in the note that they were leaving Ohio on Friday, meaning they are still here... So now what do we do?"

"Isn't there a second clue or something?"

Logan opened the note, quickly reading just the clues. Reading any other part of the note just made rage begin to bubble up inside of him. "_To find the next clue, go where the bird sings._"

Logan and Derek looked up at each other and answered simultaneously. "Pavarotti!" The two boys jumped up from the bed and pushed themselves off of it, racing out of the room. They didn't hear the small crash as they slammed the door shut behind them.

They ran through the sea of students returning from their weekends at home. Skidding on the hardwood floor, both boys barely made the corner into the room that held Pavarotti's cage. The little yellow bird looked up from where it was sleeping to watch the two boys curiously.

Logan knelt down on the floor to look under the hanging cage while Derek peaked through the bars.

"What are we even looking for anyway?" Derek moved a little to the left and bent down, trying to get a better viewing angle.

"I-I don't know…" Logan picked at the metal above him, looking for a false bottom of some kind. "It's probably another piece of paper. What else could it be?"

"I guess that makes sense." Derek moved once more, this time standing up to look down into the cage from the top.

Pavarotti looked at them wholly unamused. He shifted, placing his head back under his wing and drifted off to sleep.

"I'm not seeing anything. You?" Logan sat up and pushed himself off the floor to stand.

"Nothing… Maybe it's inside and I just can't see it." The two looked at the cage. Everything was visible… except the actual floor of the enclosure, which was covered in soiled newspaper. Derek looked up at Logan, a strange look in his eye.

"Uh-un. No. I'm not sticking my hand in there. You do it."

"Well technically I shouldn't even be here right now. The first note did say you weren't supposed to get any help… so you do it!" He took a step back from the cage.

Logan glared daggers at Derek, hoping to somehow convince the athlete to look for the clue. Derek just crossed his arms and glared right back. "Fine! This better be worth it though. If there's nothing there, you are so getting it, Seigerson." Logan took a hesitant step forward, unlatching the door. _This is disgusting. Even if the clue is here, I'm getting Derek back for this!_ Logan turned a light shade of green. Slowly, he stuck his hand in the cage and began to lift up the newspaper, jostling the enclosure a bit. The motion awoke Pavarotti.

The large foreign object suddenly inside his home caused the small warbler to leave his perch and fly frantically around the cage. Pavarotti dive bombed Logan's hand, pecking it fiercely a few times. "Ow. OW! Get off Pavarotti!" Logan checked the last part of the cage bottom and yanked his hand out, slamming the door shut. "Demon bird," Logan mumbled under his breath, messaging his slightly bleeding hand. Derek stood a few feet away, doubled over in laughter. "What are you laughing at?"

"You just got beat up… by a _bird_!" Derek straightened up, wiping a tear from his eye. As his breathing calmed, he continued to speak. "So, did you find anything?"

"No. And stop laughing would you, it's not funny!"

"Ok. Ok. Well, what exactly did the note say again?"

Logan pulled the piece of notebook paper out of his pocket and handed it to Derek. The athlete could tell from the way Logan refused to look at the paper at all that the blond couldn't bring himself to read the note again. Giving Logan a knowing yet comforting smile, he unfolded the paper and read the clue once more under his breath, "_To find the next clue, go where the birds sing._" _Wait!_ He paused for a moment, rereading the line once more. "You idiot! It's plural! It's _bird__**s**_ sing, not bird sings!"

"You mean you just made me stick my hand in bird shit and get attacked by a crazed animal for _nothing_!"

"Hey. Don't blame me! It's not my fault you apparently can't read!"

"But you're the one who suggested it!" Logan stormed angrily towards Derek, who held his hands up in front of him defensively.

"Whoa there. This isn't going to help anything. Sorry, ok?"

The blond took a calming breath, the slight glint in his eyes left as he looked at his friend who was now backed against the wall. Logan took a step back. Derek handed him back the note, which Logan put in his pocket. _We might need this later._ "You're right… So plural, meaning multiple birds."

Derek leaned against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor. "Yeah. We need to find someplace where there's a lot of birds then… an aviary?"

Logan thought about this option for a second. "No. We don't have an aviary on campus… and the note said all the clues were here at Dalton."

"Hmmm… the woods maybe?"

"I kind of doubt that, but it makes sense I guess."

Derek stood up. "Let's go then."

The two boys headed out of the room, closing the door as Pavarotti tweeted at them angrily for disturbing his rest.

As they passed the grandfather clock, it chimed out 4 O'clock. Logan stopped to look at the clock. "It's already 4? How long have we been working on this freaking clue?"

Turning, Derek looked at the clock as well. "Apparently four hours… I got back at noon." Just then, Logan's stomach growled. "What was that?"

"My stomach… I don't think I've eaten all day."

"Well let's stop off at the dining hall first and grab something then."

"But what about Juli-"

"A few minutes in the dining hall won't matter. Plus, you get really cranky when you're hungry. That'll just set us back."

"I do _not _get cranky!" Logan stamped his foot on the ground. Derek tilted his head, giving the blond an 'I told you so' look. "Don't even start with me, Derek. Let's just get something and eat it in the woods while we look."

"Sounds like a plan." Derek continued his journey down the hall, Logan close behind.

They headed to the dining hall, picking up a few items, and then headed out of South and Main towards the woods. As they walked up the hill to pass Stuart, a familiar head of dark brown hair appeared.

The boy waved at the two Stuarts. "Hey Logan, Derek!"

"Oh, hi Bailey… we're kind of in a rush, so bye." Logan didn't stop as he continued to walk up the hill. Derek gave him an apologetic look before continuing on after the blond.

"But aren't you going to practice?" Logan stopped in his tracks. _Shoot. Practice. I completely forgot. _"You are coming right? Regionals are soon." _Should I? NO! Why am I even questioning that? Julian is way more important than a lousy competition! Screw the Warblers. Screw Regionals!_ Logan continued to trek up the hill. "You're ditching us? The practice is mandatory! If you don't come, then you're out!" Logan didn't look back at all. "You can't ditch us two years in a row. The Warblers need you!" Logan stopped again, not turning around. "Well, it is your choice. If you change your mind, you know where to find us." Bailey had just turned to walk towards South and Main when a blond streak flew past him followed by Derek.

"Thanks Bailey! See you there!"

"You're welcome...?" Confused, Bailey continued down the hill.

"Logan. LOGAN! Stop for a second!" Derek called after the Prefect. "Where are we going?"

"I'm not stopping," Logan called back without bothering to turn around. "I know where to find the next clue! Warblers are a kind of bird right? And where do the Warblers sing?"

Derek took a moment. "Wait… Adam didn't mean real birds! Warbler Hall. Of course!" Derek picked up his pace to run beside Logan.

They ran through the halls of the academic building, reaching the practice room. Logan tore the doors open and began frantically running around the room. He ran to the piano, opening the top and looking around the strings within. Finding nothing, he fell to the floor, scooting under the piano to check the underside. There wasn't a single piece of paper or written word in site. Logan shimmied out from under the instrument and finally looked around the room.

Everyone was already there, staring at Logan questioningly.

"Mr. Wright. May I ask what you are doing under the piano?" Medel looked down at Logan.

"Oh, uh. Nothing. I, uh, lost something in here last week… and it's really important."

"What was it exactly?"

"It was, um… a page out of my notebook. It had really, _really_ important notes on it for the big exam Murdoch is giving next week."

"Ok… Well we'll help you look for it then, won't we everyone?" There were some mumbled response and a few annoyed looks, especially from a few of the Windsors. No one moved.

Kurt stood up from among the other group members. "Come on guys. Look at it this way, the sooner we find what Logan lost, the sooner we can go back to practicing."

Medel smiled at the countertenor appreciatively. "Thank you, Kurt. Now everyone, get up and start looking." Reluctantly, boys stood up in one's and two's to begin searching the practice hall.

Kurt turned to Logan and gave him a small grin before turning and joining Blaine and Reed to look behind the book shelves. Derek took a step into the room from where he had been watching in the doorway. "So we're seriously just going to check every surface of the room until we find the next clue?"

"I guess so…" _Where the birds sing… where the birds sing… _Logan scanned the room. _There has to be some deeper meaning to it, something that'll narrow down where to look._ His eyes fell on the performance risers on the opposite side of the room… where the Warblers would sing to work out their choreography. _That's it!_ Logan darted across the room, falling to his knees mid run and sliding under the tallest step. Crawling on his hands and knees, he searched under the platform until he spotted something. A folded piece of paper with the word "Logan" on it was taped to the underside of one of the steps. His hand shook as he yanked the paper off the metal, crawling back out. "Found i-OW!" He smacked his head on the riser. _Why do I have to be so tall?_ Rubbing his head, Logan walked back up to Derek. They both turned to leave the room.

"Excuse me Mr. Wright, but we still have practice!" Harvey called from where he had been "supervising" the search by the instrument rack. Logan continued to walk towards the door. "Logan, this practice is mandatory. If you walk out that door, you're out until after Regionals."

Logan hesitated, but took another step towards the door. A hand grabbed his shoulder. "Lo. Stay. I know how much this group means to you. I know how much the rest of them need you, too," Derek whispered.

"But I need to solve this clue. We need to find Julian!"

"And once we find Julian, you're going to regret that you didn't spend one lousy hour in practice… give me the note. I'll try to figure something out while you're here." Logan opened his mouth to say something, but Derek cut him off. "Stay!"

Reluctantly, Logan handed the new note to Derek. He turned, taking his usual seat beside Bailey, who had arrived during the search. Logan watched Derek as he left. _Derek's right. I would regret not staying for an hour… once we find Julian. It's only an hour. We still have a little over three days to figure this all out. Ha, Derek will probably have the clue figured out by the time I get back anyways! Yeah. This'll be a synch. We'll find Julian in no time. What's one hour now?_ Despite Logan's upbeat thoughts, a few tears formed in his eyes, unnoticed by the rest of the Warblers, as they began their warm-up scales.

* * *

><p><strong>To be continued<strong>

**A/N:** No Julian but a little (a _very_ little) bit of Bailey and Kurt :) I hope you enjoyed! Julian will be back soon!


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay… again. :( Normally it's because I edit these chapters like crazy (I don't have a beta and if I didn't edit, you'd all probably stab your eyes out while reading. My first drafts are HORRENDOUS!) but this time I got MAJOR writer's block. That being said, I was 900 words into the chapter and I got writer's block (the first time)… Then inspiration struck and I wrote the Dwight scene haha hopefully it flows together ok :)  
>And then I got writer's block another 5 times during this chapter… Ugh. I hope the length makes up for it… because this chapter is SO long…<p>

Also, these clues have the potential to get really repetitive, so I'm trying my hardest to vary it as much as I can with my limited writing abilities.

Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing. The reviews really make me smile and I try to take the suggestions into consideration if I think they'll make the story better (like the date in chapter 3… that and chapter 2 weren't supposed to happen hehe).

So to all of you who have read and/or reviewed: YOU ARE ALL WONDROUS HUMAN BEINGS! (And if you are, for some reason, not a human being, you are wondrous just the same.)

Oh, and I have a tumblr,** ravenclawjess. tumblr. com (remove the spaces of course)**. I don't have any writing on there though, so do with this information as you wish :)

_**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._

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><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

Logan ran up the main staircase of Stuart after what seemed like the longest hour of Warblers practice he could remember. He ran down the hall, avoiding the room to his right that had caused him so much pain and threw the door open to Derek's room.

"You've figured it out, right? Or at least come up with some sort of idea?" What Logan saw in the room was not what he had expected. Derek was sprawled across his bed surrounded by notes and textbooks. The athlete was sound asleep. "What the hell Derek!" Logan slammed the door shut, the sound of the wood resonated through the room. The sleeping boy shot up on the bed, looking groggily at the blonde. "I come back and I find you asleep? This better mean you have the clue solve!"

"Wha- oh." Derek collected his thoughts and finally addressed Logan. "No… no, I haven't figured out the clue yet."

Logan began to walk headlong across the room towards Derek. "What do you _mean_ you haven't figured it out yet? From what I see, you're just doing homework. Julian's freaking life is at stake and you're _studying_?" Logan closed the remaining gap between them and lifted Derek off the bed by his collar. Derek could see the rage beginning to cloud Logan's judgment.

"Hang ON! Let me explain!" Derek held onto Logan's wrists to try to loosen the blond's grip on his shirt. It wasn't helping. "I _did_ come back here to figure out the clue. But I didn't know the answer so I went to go look it up on that website from earlier… But my computer…," he gestured with his head to his bed, "it's broken. I have no clue when or how it happened, but it doesn't work anymore. So then I decided to go down to the computer lab. But then remembered it's not open today because we didn't have class." Logan's grip let up just a touch and his eyes began unclouding a bit. "I figured I'd do some studying until you got back. I think best when I'm multitasking…"

Logan released his friend and Derek sunk back onto the bed. The blond reached past him to pick up the lap top from the comforter. Turning it in his hands, he saw that the cover was dented and one for the corners was practically flat. Logan opened it. The upper portion wiggled on its hinge and the screen was practically shattered. "What the heck happened to this?"

"I told you. I have no freakin' clue. It was fine when we left this afternoon but when I got back, it was broken." Both boys looked at the computer as if it would suddenly tell them what had happened.

Realization appeared on Derek's face. "When we left earlier… do you remember hearing a crash?"

Logan thought for a second. "Maybe? I thought it was just the door, but now that I think of it, it definitely didn't sound like wood to me, more like… plastic and metal."

"Great. It must have fallen off my bed then." Derek's head fell into his hands. "Yep. My parents are going to kill me."

"Stop being so dramatic! You're rich, Derek. You can just buy another one."

"That's not the point! That computer was a gift from my aunt, the Russian one. She got it from the company she works for there. It's state of the art. It's not supposed to come on the market for another few months. They're going to kill me because _I_ wrecked it."

"Derek, get a grip! It's just a damn computer." Logan threw the lap top back on the bed. Derek quickly scooped it up into his lap. "The real problem is how we're going to solve this new clue without a computer. We can't afford to wait until the computer lab opens." Logan paused. "Wait… what _is_ the clue?"

"Only you would get mad at me for not figuring out the clue without knowing what it was yourself." Derek pulled a folded paper out of his pocket and handed it to Logan, who was glaring at him for the previous comment. The blond hesitantly unfolded the paper, reading the red writing.

…

_Well it seems you have found the second clue. Don't forget the one rule: No Help Allowed!_

_So here it is:_

_**How many awards has Julian personally won?**_

_**The next clue can be found where Thomas rests.**_

…

"I, uh, see why you had trouble without a computer." Logan looked back up at Derek, where he was sitting on his bed hugging his broken computer. "Do you have any ideas?"

"It as to be at least 2, because we had those House award show viewing parties when Julian won those two best supporting actor awards, but there are probably more."

"I know he talked about them before… some awards he got before coming to Dalton… I just can't remember." _Why hadn't I listened to Julian all those times he told me really boring Hollywood stories? _ Logan took a seat in the desk chair and stared down at the paper held in his hand while Derek stared at the wall opposite him. Both boys were trying to dig deep into their memories to find the answer.

Ten minutes passed. Derek shifted his gaze from the wall to Logan, who was still staring intently at the notebook page in front of him. "The answer isn't going to magically appear if you try burning a hole in the page… which I'm pretty sure you're close to doing with the way you're staring at it."

"Ass," Logan whispered. Derek heard him but merely rolled his eyes. The blond looked up from the paper, the same intense glare in his eyes. "Well since we both don't have computers and the only others we can use are off limits until after class tomorrow, what do you suggest we do?" Derek shrugged and then both boys stared at the wall opposite them, trying to think of some way to figure out the clue without a computer. A few minutes passed in silence. "Duh! Why don't I just go down the hall and force one of the other students to let us use their computer? I can't believe I didn't think of that before." Logan made to get up out of the desk chair.

"Wait. Think about this for a second." Derek held up his hand, signaling the Prefect to stop what he was doing. Logan sat back down.

"What?" There was a bit of contempt in his voice.

"Are you seriously going to go into another student's room and forcefully take their computer from them?"

"Yeah. Is there a problem with that?"

"Um. Yes. You seriously think that any of these guys would let you use their computer on a Monday night? We're all Stuarts! If they aren't cramming in all their homework from the weekend before class tomorrow, they're getting a head start on work for this week. Even if they don't stand up to you now, taking one of their computers is not going to turn out well in the future!"

Logan thought about this for a moment. "Ok… maybe you have a point. But if you don't think of something else, I'm going to the nearest room and confiscating an unsuspecting guy's computer." He crossed his arms and waited for Derek to answer.

"I think our best bet is to just wait until after class tomorrow." Logan opened his mouth to say something. "NO. That does not give you permission to harass other students for their computers. You had a close call a month ago when you completely demolished the Common Room. You can't afford to take the chance of the guy saying anything to someone who might take it as a sign that you are overstepping your boundaries as Prefect."

Logan groaned. "Geez. When did you get so thoughtful," his voiced dripped with sarcasm.

"I've always been like this… but for some reason you're choosing now to finally listen to me."

Logan chose to ignore what Derek had just said. "So if we can't figure out the clue until after class tomorrow when the computer labs are open, what should we do in the meantime?"

"I don't know about you, but I have a hell of a lot of homework to catch up on."

"I guess." Derek had turned to resume reading over the notes still scattered across his bed. Logan got out of his chair and started heading to the door but paused. "Derek?"

The athlete looked up from his notebook. "Yeah?"

"Do… do you mind if I do my homework in here? I just don't think that, um… I don't know if I can be alone just yet…" Logan wrung his hands. He hated being this forward with his feelings, but it's what the situation called for.

Derek gave him a small smile. "Of course."

Logan returned the smile, although weakly and went to his room to gather his things.

The boys spent the rest of the night catching up on their homework, all the while, desperately trying to remember how many awards their best friend had won over the years. Around 1 in the morning, they drifted off to sleep over their textbooks.

* * *

><p>The next morning, the two boys' heads shot up at the sound of Derek's alarm blaring. Logan put his head back in his arms on top of the desk, trying to block out the noise. Reluctantly, Derek shifted the textbook off his stomach and got up from the bed. He shuffled to his desk where his alarm clock sat and hit the snooze button before turning it off completely. Looking down, he saw that Logan had somehow drifted off to sleep again despite the noise right next to his ear.<p>

"Wake up Logan." The blond didn't move at all. "Wake up!" Derek screamed. Logan readjusted himself in the chair, but he was still sound asleep. _Well he's not spending the day asleep at my desk and we both have to get ready for class. _He looked around his room, trying to find inspiration on how to wake his sleeping friend. He spotted something promising on the desk beside Logan's arm. A notebook. Picking it up, Derek swatted Logan in the back of the head adding, "Wake up before I find something harder to hit you with!"

Logan's head popped up from the desk once more as he made intelligible noises. Then he realized what had happened. "OW." He rubbed the back of his head. "Was that really necessary? You could have just yelled at me or something!"

"I tried that, your royal highness." Derek threw the notebook back on the desk. "You didn't wake up so I had to resort to alternative measures. Now, I love having you over, but get out of my room. We both need to get ready for class."

Grumbling, Logan gathered his belongings and head back to his room to get ready for the day. _This day better go by quickly. The sooner the computer labs are open, the better._

* * *

><p>The day seemed to drag on for both Derek and Logan. Neither of them paid any attention to their professors and both got in trouble a few times for not responding when they were asked a question.<p>

Lunch rolled around and both boys ate in silence together, too focused on the end of the day and figuring out the clue to participate in any social activities.

After a few more classes that neither boy remembered, the final bell rang to signal the end of the school day. Gathering their belongings hurriedly into their backpacks, they both ran out of their classrooms and down the halls, pushing past any of the unfortunate students that got in the way. They met at the door at the computer lab. After allowing the students from the computer science class to leave, Logan and Derek stepped inside and sat at the two nearest computers, opening the internet immediately.

"So where should we start looking?" Logan asked.

"We're looking for the number of awards that Julian's won for himself right?" Logan nodded. "That shouldn't be too hard to find then. I would think there's a lot of websites out there with that information."

Both fell into silence as they started searching the internet. Not even a minute later, Logan pounded the table with his fist and jumped in his seat a little. "Found it!"

Derek leaned over in his seat to look at Logan's computer screen. "Five. Julian's won five awards? Where have we been?"

Logan shrugged. "I don't know and I really don't care. We have our answer so let's go find the next clue!" Logan started to get up from his chair when a force on his shoulder pushed him down.

"Just give me a minute to find another website to double check. I don't want to move on before we know for sure it's five." Derek turned back to his computer to check a few more websites. All of them said Julian had won five awards. "Well I guess the first website was right…"

Logan shot up from his chair and picked up his bag. "Thank you for wasting our time. Now let's do something _useful _and go find the next clue." He pulled the notebook paper out of his pocket and read the second clue that would lead them another step closer to Julian. "_The next clue can be found where Thomas rests._"

Derek stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. "Well the first thing that comes to my mind is that it's in some guy named Thomas' room. Although, that is just creepy. Adam would have to had gotten into their room without anyone noticing."

"That's what I was thinking too. And it _is_ Adam… I don't think classifying something creepy would stop him from doing it." They walked out of South and Main and head back towards Stuart. "So we should probably look in our house first. Putting the clue close to Julian and I would make the most sense." Derek nodded in agreement.

The two entered Stuart and walked up the grand staircase. "How exactly are you planning to get into these guys' rooms to search?" Logan led them to his room where they dropped their bags on his bed. The room was still a mess from the rage Logan had gone through the day before. "We should probably clean this up eventually."

Logan glanced around the room. "Probably… Anyways, you didn't forget I'm Prefect did you? I can just say that Murdoch requested I search their room after an anonymous tip that they were harboring illegal substances or something. They don't need to know I'm lying and they would never tell a soul that they were suspected for something that could get them expelled from Dalton." Logan opened that bottom draw of his desk and pulled out a massive navy binder with the Dalton emblem on the front. _Thank god I only went for stuff out in the open yesterday and this thing is still intact._

"That… actually makes sense." Derek looked at Logan with a shocked expression.

"Stop acting like that's surprising and help me look through the list of boarders to see if we even have any Thomas' in the building." He flipped the binder open on his desk and found where the master list of boarders began. "Look for first, middle, and last names, just in case."

They both scanned the list, twice. Logan and Derek let out sighs of aggravation. "There's only one Tom in Stuart but no Thomas' and I don't think Tom counts… What do we do now?"

"I guess we move on to Windsor and Hanover."

"Well I'm not going over to Windsor unless there's no other choice. I'll text Justin and see if there's any Thomas' over there." Logan yanked his phone out of the pocket of his uniform pants and scrolled through his contact list before taking his aggravation out on his keypad.

.

_Weird question… but are there any Thomas' in Hanover? Either first, middle, or last name. – Logan_

.

It was almost a minute before his phone vibrated and displayed the incoming message.

.

_I'm not even going to ask. Let me check. – Justin_

.

Logan smirked at his phone. _Please let there be one. Please_. His phone went off again.

.

_Sorry. There's a Thomson, but no Thomas. – Justin_

.

Logan almost threw his phone into the ground, but realized that was probably a bad idea. He sent a quick 'thank you' text back and looked up at Derek.

"I can already tell that we have to look into Windsor, don't we."

"Unfortunately." Logan kicked his desk and then headed for his door.

"Aren't you going to text Charlie first before we head over there?"

"Nope… I already know they have at least one Thomas in that house… This should be interesting." Derek looked questioningly at Logan, but followed the blond out of the room.

* * *

><p>The two Stuarts climbed the stairs of Windsor house. <em>What the heck am I going to say that'll make them let me in?<em> Logan raised his hand to knock on the door. Before hand made contact with wood, a loud crackle came from above them. "What are you doing here?" Logan and Derek looked around frantically until they noticed the tiny speaker above the door.

"We're here to talk to Dwight." Logan spoke up at the black box.

Derek looked at the blond quizzically. _Dwight?_

"And why, may I ask, do you want to see the White Knight?"

"Han, just let me in."

"I can't do that. Stuarts aren't allowed in without permission… _especially_ not you."

The double doors creaked open slowly. Logan was too preoccupied in his fight with the computer wiz to notice. "Seriously? I'm not here-"

"Don't worry about it, Caterpillar." Logan looked down from the speaker to see two tall blonds standing in the doorway.

"We've got this." Angry mumbling was heard as the speaker crackled off.

"So what brings the Knave and the King of Hearts…"

"to our little house?"

"It's none of your business." Derek scowled at the twins. He really didn't like his nickname.

Logan gave him a sideways glance. He whispered, "This is really not the time to fight with them. Just let it go." Derek continued to glare at the twins, but didn't say a word.

"Well if you aren't going to tell us…"

"then you can't come in." They started to close to doors together.

"Wait!" Logan placed one hand on each door, preventing them from being shut. "I can't tell you why we're here, but I can tell you we need to see Dwight."

"Now was that so hard?" The twins threw the doors open again, allowing the two Stuarts to enter.

"Follow us." They smiled before turning and skipping across the foyer and up the stairs. Derek raised an eyebrow at Logan, clearly not enjoying the company of the twins. Logan rolled his eyes and motioned for the athlete to follow him.

The twins stopped at a door on the second floor. "Well here we are!"

"Have fun with Dwight!" They turned to walk away.

"One second. I have a question for you two," Logan said.

"Yes Knave."

"How may we…"

"be of service?"

"Do you know the names of everyone in the house?" Logan asked.

"Why yes we do."

"We like to know everyone."

"We never know when we'll find…"

"another character to add to our collection." Derek rolled his eyes at this, clearly not amused.

"Are there any other Thomas' in Windsor?"

The two thought for a moment. "Nope. Just the one," both answered together.

"Thanks."

"No problem." The two replied together again before turning around and skipping away once more.

"I will never get use to those two," Derek said turning towards the door.

"Neither will I… and I've known them since middle school." Logan looked at the door in front of them.

"So why are we at Dwight's room? We're looking for a Thomas."

"I know that. I'm not an idiot. Dwight's really his middle name. His first name is Thomas… and apparently he's the only Thomas at this school, so there better be something in here."

Logan knocked on the door. A few seconds later, a small boy opened the door, Dwight's roommate, Todd. "Hi?"

Derek took the lead in the conversation. "Oh, uh, hi… We, uh, can't really fully explain why, but, uh, this is going to sound really weird and you're probably going to think we're-"

Logan rolled his eyes and came to the rescue of his babbling friend. "Can we please look through Dwight's side of the room?... We promise to put everything back where it was and not take anything of his out of the room."

"Sure… whatever. Just don't mess up the salt rings unless you want Dwight to exorcize you." Todd opened the door a little further, letting the two Stuarts in and then returned to his desk to continue his writing.

The two boys began rummaging through Dwight's belongings. "So," Logan whispered, "where do you think it is?"

"Well it said 'where Thomas rests,' so his bed?" Dwight turned to shift through the bed next to him.

"It could just mean the room in general, like, rest as in relax…" Logan continued to look through the paper's on Dwight's desk.

The door creaked open. The two boys looked up to see a very confused boy looking at them from the doorway. "What are you doing in my room?" Dwight yelled.

"Looking for a clue," Logan answered without really thinking about it as he started to rifle through the weapons chest at the end of the bed.

Dwight's expression changed from confused to shocked. "Oh my… you're possessed aren't you? I knew I sensed something! You've been sent to discover my plans to rid Dalton of all evil!" He raised his sprayer, aiming it at Derek, the closer of the two boys. "Be gone evil demons!"

Holy water drenched Derek, who looked up at Dwight, a bit pissed off, as if he were going to strangle the hunter. "I'm not a demon you-"

"Just ignore him Derek and keep looking!" Both returned to where they were looking through the Windsor's belongings.

Dwight stepped further into the room. "How did you get past the salt rings, you demons? I said be gone!" He raised his sprayer and this time soaked Logan.

The blond looked up from the chest of weapons, trying not to get angry. "Dwight, please stop spraying us. We got past your salt rings because we aren't demons. Your roommate let us in."

Hesitantly, Dwight lowered his holy water. "Todd, is that true?"

Without looking up from his notebook, the other boy responded, "Yeah. They said they needed to look through your stuff and they promised not to take anything so I let them in."

Dwight looked back at the two boys on his side of the room and sighed. "Fine. Just don't do it again." He holstered his sprayer. "Now, may I ask what you are doing going through my stuff?"

"I already told you. We're looking for a clue." Logan stopped, looking back up at Dwight. "Hold on. You can help. Have you seen a piece of notebook paper in your room that looks like it's been written on in blood?"

"Blood? Why are you looking for something covered in blood? If I hadn't already established that you two were human, I'd be concerned."

"We can't explain… just answer the question!"

"No. I defiantly would have noticed something in my room written in blood… or at least sensed it." Dwight's eyes darted around the room. "Wait. Maybe I did miss it." He darted to his desk, rifling through his papers.

_This guy is weird_. Logan shook his head and continued his search for the paper.

After an hour, the three boys had searched through the entire room, including Todd's side, much to the other boy's dismay. There was not a single bloody notebook page to be found.

Logan turned to Derek. "Great. There's no way we missed it with three of us looking. What else could the clue mean?"

"What other meaning could 'where Thomas rests' have?"

They had apparently spoken louder than they thought. Dwight looked up from where he was still frantically looking through his bed sheets. "Did you say you were looking for the clue where Thomas rests?"

"Yeah. But you're the only Thomas in school and it's not anywhere in your room."

"That's not entirely true…There's about a dozen Thomas' in the grave yard by the chapel. The Thomas family use to own all this land before a guy named Dalton stole it from them and built the school on it. Why do you think there is so much paranormal activity here? The Thomas family is getting revenge!"

Logan and Derek exchanged glances before heading out of the bedroom. "Thanks, Dwight." They slammed the door shut on a very confused Dwight and a grateful Todd.

The Stuarts ran down the main staircase and out the front door. It had gotten dark out. "What time is it?" Derek asked, trying to make out the way to the chapel through the gloom.

Logan pulled out his phone. "Eight. Wow we were there a while."

They continued to run across Dalton until they reached the rod iron gate of the chapel graveyard. They hopped the fence and made for the first row of head stones. "You start on that side and I'll start here. We'll meet in the middle." Logan pulled out his phone to use as a flashlight, scanning the first headstone as Derek ran off to the other end of the graveyard. It wasn't until the second row of headstones that Logan found his first 'Thomas.' Kneeling down, Logan circled the stone, looking for anything unusual. Finding nothing on the granite, he looked through the grass, digging into the dirt about an inch. Not finding a single sign of notebook paper, Logan moved on down the row of graves.

He was repeating the process on his third 'Thomas' grave when Derek called over from the other side of the graveyard. "Over here! I found something!" Logan ran through the headstones in the direction of his friend's voice, nearly tripping over him in the dark. "Hey. Watch where you're going!"

"I would if I could actually see where I was going." Logan attempted to give Derek a death glare through the darkness when he remembered why he had almost fallen on the other boy. "What did you find?"

Derek held something up and Logan snatched it out of his hand and held it under the light from his phone. It was a plastic sandwich bag with a folded piece of notebook paper inside. Logan fumbled with the seal, practically ripping the plastic open instead. He managed to get it open, unfolding the paper, and reading it aloud by the light of his phone.

...

_I see you're doing better than I expected, although I wouldn't suggest you get your hopes up. Here's the next clue:_

_**The movie in which Julian played a character whose name started with the same letter as his onscreen love interest.**_

_**Find the next clue by the trees that share the name of Julian's favorite flavor of candy.**_

...

Derek shivered. He realized how cold it had gotten and decided to check his phone. "It's Nine-thirty. We should go back to Stuart before we freeze." He pushed himself off the ground and began walking in the direction of Stuart.

"Yeah. I need to get back before curfew anyway to do room checks." Finally tearing his eyes away from this newest clue, Logan slowly began to follow Derek.

After what felt like an eternity walking through the darkness, they made it back to Stuart. Logan and Derek stopped in the foyer. "We're going to have to wait until tomorrow to use the computer labs again. I'm going to go do some homework and go to bed."

"I'm going to get bed checks done and do the same I think."

They turned to head up the stairs and down the hall to Derek's door. "Are you sleeping in your room tonight or mine?"

Logan stopped and avoided looking at the door across the hall. Derek noticed. "My room."

"Are you sure you're ready for that?"

"Yes, mother. I'll be fine." He rolled his eyes, turned and walked down the hall to his room, grabbed his clipboard and made sure all the boys were back for curfew.

Returning to his room, Logan removed the remnants of his rage from the previous day from his bed and flopped down still fully dressed. He was exhausted. _Screw homework. I'm going to sleep._ He closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep, but his thoughts got the best of him. _I wonder what Julian's doing right now… I wonder if Julian's ok… Will I be able to get there in time?... What happens if I don't?..._ His thoughts circled around his mind as sleep remained on the edges. Eventually, pure exhaustion took over and Logan drifted into a restless sleep as the thoughts followed him into his subconscious.

* * *

><p>Julian sat tied to his chair, hands still bound in front of him. Adam sat next to him, holding what would have been a normal conversation, had Julian not been a prisoner. Adam looked at Julian with a loving expression as the actor avoided eye contact. This is how it had been since Adam had returned that Tuesday morning.<p>

The Hanover wrapped up his one-sided conversation about the complexities of Julian's character Grant in the season finale of _Something Damaged_ and added, "So… I've been talking for a while. What do you want to talk about?" Adam wiggled a little in his chair, moving closer to Julian.

_What the hell am I suppose to say?_ He racked his brain for something, anything, as Adam looked at him eagerly. An idea came to him. Not something that Adam would probably want to talk about, but it was something Julian had been curious about since the kidnapping. _Might as well give it a try_. "Why has your personality changed so much recently?"

Confusion replaced the utter happiness on the Hanover's face. "What do you mean sweetie?"

"I mean… like that. Calling me sweetie. In the few months we've known each other, you've never acted like that towards me… why now?"

Adam took a moment to think about it. "Well… I think it's probably because I don't have to hide my feelings anymore. Back at Dalton, I could have never told you that I love you. Everyone thought you were straight. I'm not stupid. There's no way you would have ever reciprocated if I had acted like this around everyone else. I had to wait until we were alone. I had to wait until now to finally tell you how I feel, where you can feel free to tell me the same without worrying what others will think… I hope that makes sense." He smiled at Julian.

"Oh, um, yeah. That makes sense." _Why does it have to make sense?_ Julian let everything Adam had said sink in. They had both had to hide their love for someone because they knew the other person wouldn't or couldn't reciprocate. _We're not so different after all… but he's still creepy as hell. _

A buzzing came from the other boy, who pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Ah. It's Ten. Time for me to go." He stood up and flicked off the camp lantern on the desk. "Goodnight sweetheart. See you bright and early in the morning. I think we're really making progress." He walked out the door and the lock clicked behind him.

Julian was lost in darkness once more with only his thoughts to distract him. It was then that he suddenly remembered. His bound hands moved to his pocket, pulling a folded paper out. Julian had forgotten he had put the note Logan had left him into his pocket the morning before. Even though he couldn't read it in the darkness now, just holding it gave him a sense of comfort.

His thoughts continued to wander. He wondered what Logan was doing. He wondered how far along the blond was with the most likely cryptic clues Adam had left him. He only had 2 day and 14 hours left until it was Friday at noon. _God, Logan, I wish you were here right now_. His head flopped onto the pillow which hadn't left its spot on the desk in front of him since it had been placed there the night before. It was then that Julian came to a conclusion. _My plan is underway tomorrow morning._

* * *

><p><strong>To be continued<strong>

A/N: So there is a VERY little bit of Julian for you. Expect even more next chapter (barring any sudden ideas that come to me while writing the next chapter that might post-pone it).

Again, I'm **_really_** sorry for the delay. I hoped the chapter was worth the wait :)


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** So between the Klaine Kiss Riot and the multiple Gondola Riots on tumblr, this chapter took a day or two longer than expected. Sorry again :( But this chapter is long. Like, it's longer than my mini-thesis for the honors class I took last semester… and mine was the longest in the class.  
>Also, I teared up a bit writing the second section. Hopefully that comes through (though as you know by now, I have little faith in my own writing abilities…).<p>

Because this chapter was so long, I'm postponing more Julian/Adam until the next chapter. IT WILL BE IN THE NEXT CHAPTER! I PROMISE!

As always, thank you to everyone who's read and/or reviewed. The reviews really do get me through my writer's block (like with the last chapter).

Also, THIS FIC AND THE ORIGINAL BOTH HAVE OVER 1,000 HITS EACH! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! (See my tumblr for this freak out in gif form. My URL is on my profile page and in the author's note for chapter 7.)

_**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

_It was quiet. Snow fell gently but quickly onto the already white ground. Sunlight filtered dimly through the clouds that were slowly thickening overhead. It was beautiful. _

_For some reason, he didn't feel cold, despite the snow quickly accumulating around his ankles. _

_He was walking. To where, he didn't know. But he knew he needed to keep moving. Something was pulling him in this direction._

_The clouds grew thicker, sunlight disappearing altogether. The snow picked up, now reaching his knees. Walking was becoming difficult, but he kept moving, pulled toward a mystery destination._

_The snow was up to his waist. He should have been shivering. He was only wearing his pajamas after all. But he was perfectly warm, as if he were merely taking a stroll through a field on a sunny spring afternoon. _

_He probably should have found this strange, but he didn't._

_That's when he saw something in the distance, or maybe it was someone. He squinted, attempting to see through the falling snow. It was definitely someone. The figure flickered in and out of view as he fought through the deep drifts. _

_Was this person the force that was pulling him?_

_He called out, trying to get the figure's attention. But nothing came out. To his astonishment, he didn't have a voice. _

_He picked up his pace. He didn't know why, but he knew he needed to catch up to the figure._

_Suddenly, the wind began to gust violently, whipping the snow on the ground into the air to join what was falling from the sky. Everything disappeared in a wall of white, including the figure. _

_He kept moving forward in the direction he was being invisibly pulled. The snow continued to deepen, but he was as warm as ever._

_He fought desperately against the unrelenting snow now pressing against his stomach. He needed to find this person. He just had a feeling, like he didn't just need to find them, but that the person needed him or something._

_Then the wind disappeared as suddenly as it had started, the swirling snow returned to falling softly to the ground. _

_And there the figure was, further away than before._

_The snow had reached his chest. He used his hands to dig through the wet powder, pushing through the ever rising drifts. No matter how much progress he made, he never seemed to get any closer to this mystery person._

_Suddenly, the figure stood only a few feet away. When he had made that much progress, he didn't know. The falling snow continued to distort his sight. Although the figure was close, he couldn't make out any distinguishing features. _

_He opened his mouth once again. His voice had not returned. Maybe if he just reached his arm out, he could get this person's attention. Maybe he could find out why he felt this incredible draw and why he had the feeling this person needed his help._

_Raising his arm up through the heavy snow, now up to his neck, he leaned forward, using all his energy to reach for the figure. _

_The snow was still rising. He fought to keep his head and hand above the crushing weight._

_Mere centimeters from succeeding, the snow finally covered his face. He shut his eyes. He gasped for air. Snow packed tightly around him. He couldn't breathe. His mind began to cloud, all logical thought gone. Was this how it was going to end?_

_The weight around him abruptly disappeared. His lungs filled with air. Slowly, he opened his eyes and was blinded by unexpectedly bright sunshine._

_When his eyes adjusted to the new light, he took a look at his surroundings. The snow had been replaced with sand as far as he could see. Small tufts of dried grass and cactuses dotted the sand. A haze rose off the barren landscape, distorting everything in sight._

_The figure was nowhere to be seen._

_But the draw remained. _

_He trudged through the shifting sand. He should probably be sweating from how unrelentingly the sun beat down, but he was as comfortable as he had been in the freezing snow just moments before._

_Once more in the distance, the figure appeared. He ran through the desert, falling to his hands and knees, sinking into the sand._

_It may have been only a few minutes, or maybe it was a few hours, but he was finally close enough to make out the figure through the heat waves. It was male, a brunet. He was facing away from him. _

_He took a few more steps. He was so close. A few more feet and he would be able to find out who this figure was._

_Suddenly, the figure turned slowly, revealing a pair of fear filled chocolate brown eyes. _

_He subconsciously knew who this boy was, but he couldn't get the thought to formulate in a way his conscious brain would understand. Maybe if he touched the boy, he would know. Or maybe then he could get his voice back and he could ask. He was still a good twenty feet away. Foot was placed in front of foot, making slow but steady headway._

_Suddenly, the whole world began to shake. Rumbling filled the air._

_He froze. _

_Sand shifted around the brunet until he stood on only rock. There was a loud crack. Both of them looked down at the trembling ground under the brunet's feet. A fissure had appeared in the rock. They looked up at each other; the other boy's eyes wide open, pleading for help._

_He had been right. This boy did need his help._

_But he couldn't move. It felt as if his feet were welded to the sand where he stood. From what he saw, the other boy was experiencing the same phenomenon._

_The ground continued to shake beneath them._

_The crack widened. The brunet was straddling the gap in the stone. _

_He knew it wouldn't be long before the chasm was too wide… and the other boy fell in. In his mind, he knew he needed to get to the other boy to safety. But still he couldn't move. His legs wouldn't let him._

_The two slabs of rock moved farther and farther apart until it was just too much. One of the brunet's feet slipped and the boy fell into the fissure. The only part of him still visible was ten fingers clinging to the rock ledge._

_His feet became seemingly unglued at the sight of the other falling. He ran, falling to the ground a few feet away and crawling towards the edge where the boy continued to dangle. _

_One hand disappeared. _

_He crawled faster._

_The second slipped, barely hanging on. _

_He inched forward, fingers barely brushing the other boy's. _

_The other hand disappeared from view._

_Panic over took him as he slid to the edge of the chasm, looking over the edge. He thrusted his hand into the depths in an attempt to catch the falling boy._

_At that, he found his voice again. _

_And he remembered. _

"_No! NO! __**JULIAN!**__" _

_He saw a pale hand reaching upwards towards his. Brown eyes disappeared into the blackness. _

_And then boy was gone._

_He had been too late._

* * *

><p>Logan bolted upright in bed, breathing heavily. A cold sweat stuck his hair to his forehead. Untangling himself from his sheets, he stood up from bed. He crossed the room, avoiding the broken objects still scattered all over his floor, and headed to his bathroom.<p>

He filled his sink with water, splashing some on his face. Raising his head, he looked at himself in the mirror. His breathing wasn't slowing down. His pupils were still dilated. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins. _What the hell was that?_

Racking a hand through his hair, Logan thought back over his dream. _Ok. That was some crazy shit. What kind of dream was that? No. Nightmare. What kind of nightmare was that? I'm not even safe from my thoughts in my _sleep_!_

Logan had been trying to suppress all his doubts and fears the past two days. To do that, he had thrown himself into solving these clues. He knew if he let all the negative thoughts take over, there was no way he'd be able to ebb the rage that was sure to follow them.

But the nightmare had done just that. All those thoughts had returned.

_God, what if my nightmare doesn't stay just that… a bad dream? What if I can't save Jules? What if I'm too late? Then Adam…_ Earlier, he had been able to avoid all of this when sleep overtook him. But he didn't have that luxury now. His hands were beginning to shake.

_Even if I get there in time, Adam has Jules now. He's probably… GAH! No. Just… no! When I get my hands on that bastard… _He swept his arms across the counter top, knocking his bathroom supplies to the floor. The bathroom had been spared on Monday, but it wasn't safe now. The shower curtain was next, torn from the rod and shredded to the floor.

_That psycho has Jules and I can't do anything about it. I can't! _He moved back into his bedroom, punching the wall. It left a dent in the heavy plaster. Turning, he torn the sheets off his bed, letting out a yell of aggravation. Unknown to Logan, the door behind him creaked open. Due to his mental state the night before, he had completely forgotten to lock his door before going to sleep.

_I'm not good enough! I can't do this!_ He looked around the room for something else to help his anger, but there was nothing. Everything was still broken and torn on the floor from Monday. He settled for punching the wall again, sinking to the floor. He clutched his head in his hands, finally letting the tears roll down his cheeks.

A hand rested on his shoulder. He looked up into a set of brown eyes, but not the ones he was longing to see. Nonetheless, he found some degree of comfort in them.

"Logan, what happened?" Derek was crouching in front of him, elbows on his knees and wrists crossed in front of him.

"N-nothing. Don't worry about it." He quickly wiped the tears from his face. Sure Derek had seen him cry before, but that didn't make it any easier for him to put his emotions on display.

Derek's eyes flickered above Logan's head to the two dents in the wall. _I knew he wasn't ready to be alone yet. _He sighed. "Logan… Logan, take your medication and come back to my room." He stood up. "You… you shouldn't be alone right now."

Logan raised his eyes to meet those of the boy standing above him. "I'll come with you, but I'm _not_ taking my medication." He was calmer, but rage was still flowing through him. He punched the hardwood floor, barely wincing at the pain now radiating up his arm.

"Lo, you're obviously losing it… just take your medication before something other than an inanimate object gets hit." Derek walked to the bedside table, opening the top drawer for what felt like the hundredth time since he had met the blond. "Here." He picked up the little orange bottle and tossed it to Logan. "Now take them."

The blond allowed the container to hit the floor beside him and roll in a small circle. "No." He glared up at his friend.

"May I ask why not?" The athlete crossed his arms, glaring back. "You obviously need them right now. You just destroyed your room. AGAIN! And don't give me that crap about wanting to feel… Feeling something is _not_ worth destroying your room every other day! Not to mention that you're tearing yourself apart! I won't watch while you slowly loss it. You-you can't live like this!"

Logan leaned over, picking the pill bottle off the floor. He fiddled with the lid. "But that's just it." The hand holding the bottle fell to the floor. "I want to feel… I _need _to feel… because I'm afraid of what'll happen if I don't." Opening his hand, he let the bottle roll out onto the polished wood.

Derek lifted an eyebrow in confusion. _I'm exhausted._ _Might as well humor him._ He sat down on the floor with a sigh, a little annoyed."Explain."

Logan closed his eyes, collecting his thoughts. "I'm afraid that… if I take my pills… I'll forget. Those _things_ make me so numb inside. I won't just lose my feelings in the moment. If I take more than one or two, I begin to forget what it's like to feel at all. And I know once I start taking them, I am going to feel _so much better_ at first... I won't want to stop and then I won't even feel human anymore… I just don't want to take a chance and… end up forgetting it all."

"Forget about what exactly?" It may have just been because he was awake at an ungodly hour of the morning, but Derek was still confused by the crypticness of Logan's explanation.

"Forget my…" Should he tell Derek? It was the only way he could get his friend to stop pestering him about his pills. Logan made a decision. He had no other choice, no matter how emotionally venerable he felt right now. "My feelings for Julian." He took a deep breath and swallowed. "I don't want those to go away, especially not now, and that's what those pills'll do. My feelings will just disappear. I'll forget they ever existed! And… and my feelings for him remind me what I'm fighting for. They are the driving force that keeps me going, no matter how much pain they cause me. I'm afraid if lose them, I-I won't have the motivation to keep going. I'll just end up sitting here in my room, staring at the wall while Julian is with that _psycho_ who's doing god knows what to him, while Jules waits for me to find him… but-but I'll never show up because those _damn pills_ made me forget why I have to keep going! I don't want to lose my feelings, ok, no matter how painful they are; no matter how much they are ripping me apart inside! Because" Logan's voice lowered to a whisper, "I've already lost him, I-I can't lose them, too… not when they're all I have left." His head fell into his hands as tears made their way down his cheeks once more.

Derek sat on the floor, mouth open in shock. He wiped away the tears that were brimming in his eyes. He had expected Logan to argue with him about taking his pills, but he was not expecting _that_. Standing up, he walked across the room to stand beside Logan. He kicked the pill bottle across the floor, offering his hand to the boy below him. "Come on. Let's go to my room."

Looking up, Logan gave a small half-smile through his tears. "Thank you." He sniffed, taking Derek's hand. The athlete pulled him up and into an unexpected hug, allowing Logan to cry on his shoulder.

A few minutes later, Logan and Derek broke apart, both feeling a little awkward. It was an understatement to say that they never shared moments like this. "Um… let's go to your room now. I'm exhausted," Logan said. With that, the two walked back to Derek's room.

Without saying a word, Logan threw himself onto Derek's bed. The athlete turned from where he was locking the door to see the blond cuddled in his comforter. "What the hell Logan! Get off my bed!" He was met by gentle snoring. Rolling his eyes, Derek settled down onto his couch and fell asleep soon after.

* * *

><p>It was Wednesday. The morning passed similarly to the previous. Logan and Derek paid little attention to their lessons. Professors gave them glares when they didn't answer when called on. The morning was filled with the same anticipation for the end of the school day, when they could get to the computer lab and solve the newest clue. The only difference was that there was now only a little over 2 days to find Julian and they had no clue how close they were.<p>

The bell rang to signal the beginning of lunch period. Derek walked to the dining hall to meet Logan outside the doors as usual. He saw the blond leaning against the wall as he approached and turned to walk through the doors. He stopped when he noticed that Logan hadn't moved from against the wall. "Aren't you coming?"

Logan hesitated for a moment before pushing off the wall. "You know what? I think I'm going to go eat lunch outside." Derek turned, making to follow the blond. "Alone," he added, before walking out to the courtyard. _I just _can't_ deal with people right now_.

He circled the building and came to the Memorial Garden. Walking slowly, he searched through the trees and flowers until he found what he was looking for: a little stone bench nestled between a brick wall, several trees, and a few large flowering bushes. This was the place he liked to go when he wanted to be alone. He couldn't see anyone from that bench and, even better, no one would be able to see him.

Sitting down, he pulled his ipod and a bag of crackers from his bag, putting on his headphones and nibbling on the snack. He turned so that his feet were on the seat and leaned back against the brick wall that was now behind him, closing his eyes and turning the music up as loud as he could tolerate. He allowed a few tears to escape as he attempted to drown out all the thoughts that were still flitting through his mind from the night before.

After listening to five or six songs, Logan opened his eyes to check the time. He wanted to escape dealing with people during lunch, but he still had to get back in time for class. Just then, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He whipped his head around to see two people stumble into his little hideout, clutching onto each other tightly and giggling. _Of course Kurt and Blaine would show up_, Logan thought has he turned his ipod off and shoved it in his bag. He didn't need to deal with this.

When the two Windsors noticed the blond standing before them, they froze. They released each other but kept their hands clasped between them.

"Sorry to interrupt your little make-out party. I'll just be going now," Logan tried to sneer. He failed miserably due to the tears threatening to reappear.

"No, no. It's ok," Kurt motioned with his free hand for Logan to sit back down. "You stay here. You were here first." He went to walk out of the little alcove when he was stopped by the hand he still had clasped in Blaine's. The shorter boy wasn't moving.

"Logan… are you ok?" Seeing the concern in his boyfriend's eyes, Kurt looked back at Logan, now seeing the dried tear tracks on his cheeks.

"I'm fine. It's none of your business, anyways." The blond bent down and picked up his bag. He pushed past the couple into the main garden but was stopped by a tug on his upper arm. Turning, he saw that Blaine had grabbed a bit of his blazer sleeve.

"If something's wrong, you can talk to me, us about it. We may not be close… ok that's an understatement. We're not close at all." Blaine saw Kurt giving him a little glare out of the corner of his eye. He took a deep breath, collecting his thoughts, and continued talking. "What I'm trying to say is, we're here for you if you need us." His hazel eyes were filled with sincerity.

Logan jerked his shoulder, releasing himself from Blaine's grasp. "I told you, I'm fine." He took a few steps.

"It's about the clues or something, isn't it?" Kurt's voice felt like a tiny knife had stabbed his back.

He stopped and turned back to the pair. "No." He knew he was lying, but they didn't need to know that. "This has nothing to do with clues or that pompous diva." The statement turned the imaginary knife a little. They couldn't know that his and Julian's relationship had changed at all.

"Logan, don't try to lie to me. We both know I can see through lies easier than I can pick out knock-off Alexander Mc Queen. Plus you just willingly brought Julian into the conversation. Something's up. Now spill." Kurt stared Logan down, free hand on hip. Blaine tried to suppress a smirk.

Those blue eyes broke him. "Fine. It's about the clues. But how the hell did you know that… it was Dwight wasn't it? Or Todd. That kid's too quite. It was Todd, wasn't it? Or the twins? They know everything. It had to be those two. I'll-."

"Hold your horses there. None of them told us anything." He looked over to Blaine who shrugged and continued for the taller boy, "It was David and Wes. They came back to Windsor with Dwight yesterday and _may_ have overheard you say something about a clue."

Kurt looked from Blaine to Logan again. "So we know it's the clues that are bothering you, but we don't know what the clues are about or how they apparently are link to a certain 'pompous diva'… care to inform us?"

_Wonderful. Well what do I do now?_ "You two aren't going to let me go until I talk about this, are you?"

"Nope," the pair said simultaneously.

Logan let out a groan. _Time to pull a story out of my ass… Hmm. Wait! They still think Julian is sick. Perfect! _ "Well you know Julian is still sick and everything, right?" He waited for the other two to nod in conformation. "Well he went all diva on me and isn't letting me into his room. Basically, he's decided if want to grace his presence, I have to solve a bunch of clues. He…" _This is the biggest pile of shit I've ever come up with… but it looks like they're buying it… _"He got the Twins to help him hide them around campus. I thought one of them was in Dwight's room. That's why I was there yesterday." Logan crossed his arms, glaring at the two. "So now you know. Can I _go_ now?"

"But we don't know what about the clues is upsetting you," Blaine said.

Logan rubbed his temples. "You two are freaking annoying! They aren't _upsetting_ me… Ugh. I'm having trouble solving them. That's all. Nothing more."

"Oh!" Kurt jumped up and down a few times. "Maybe we can help. Don't you think Blaine?"

"Yeah! Only if Logan's ok with that though…"

_Should I? What the hell, it can't make anything worse._ "Whatever." He reached into his pocket pulling out the note before hesitating. It was written in blood… or at least something that looked like blood. He couldn't let them know that. To them, these were harmless notes from Julian meant to simply push the prefect's buttons. They weren't clues from a stalker whose answers held the only means of rescuing the actor. He needed to keep it that way.

Instead of handing the note over, he opened it and read it out loud. "_The movie in which Julian played a character whose name started with the same letter as his onscreen love interest. Find the next clue by the trees that share the name of Julian's favorite flavor of candy._" _Wait. How do I explain why it's in third person? Crap._ He rolled his eyes to keep up with his act. "He apparently thought using third person would make it cooler or something…"

The Windsors stood in silence for a moment, looking nowhere in particular, contemplating what Logan had just read. Blaine was the first to speak. "Well I can see why you're having trouble with the clues if they're all like this… Why don't you just use a computer though?"

"I've _been_ using a computer," he took a deep breath, refraining from name calling. This was definitely the wrong time to let his rage get the better of him, "but both mine and Derek's are broken, so we've been waiting until school is over to use the computer lab."

"Well you can use either Blaine's or my computer… if you want that is." Kurt gave Logan a smile and Blaine nodded in agreement. "And in the meantime, why don't you try to find the next clue? That way, when you do get to a computer, you can solve two at once!"

Logan raised an eyebrow. "Why are guys being so nice to me all of a sudden?"

"Because… we may have had our differences, and we still do, but you're really trying to better yourself lately. I respect that. And after our talk about what happened last year, well, I'm ready to move on and forgive you."

"I am too… finally," Blaine added, smiling at the blond.

Logan was taken aback. "Umm, I really don't deserve this, but thanks."

Suddenly, the sound of _Teenage Dream_ filled the garden. Kurt fumbled through his pockets, locating his phone, and turning it off. Trying to hide a blush, Kurt put the phone back in his pocket. "Lunch period ends in five minutes… we-we should get going. Give us a call if you need to use our computers." The two turned and began walking across the garden.

"See you at Warbler's practice later," Blaine called over his shoulder. At that, the two Windsor's walked out of the garden and back into the school building.

_Shit. It's Wednesday, isn't it? I forgot about Warbler's practice again…_ There was no way Derek was going to let him miss any mandatory Regional's practices. That meant he couldn't spend the afternoon both finding and solving clues. He'd have to choose one or the other.

Then he remembered something. _Thank god my free period's in the afternoon today!_ He'd go looking for the second clue then.

* * *

><p>The next hour felt like an eternity to Logan. He sat in Latin class, paying more attention to the minute hand slowly making its way around the clock face than the lesson on the board.<p>

Then the bell rang. _Finally! _He held his bag at the end of his desk and swept his belongings into the opening. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he sent a quick text to Derek, who had had his free period that morning.

.

_Going 2 look 4 the next clue during free period so we can solve 2 after school _– L

.

_Ok. Have fun your majesty – D_

.

Rolling his eyes at Derek's response, he walked out into the courtyard while the majority of the other students headed to their next classes. He waited for the courtyard to clear before pulling the note out of his pocket and read the second half of the clue.

.

_**Find the next clue by the trees that share the name of Julian's favorite flavor of candy.**_

.

_Why the hell didn't I think of looking for the next clue before? _Adam had probably been trying to trip him up, using a fact about Julian in the clue to find the next note. But Logan knew this one. He'd been sexually frustrated enough times by Julian's lollipop addiction to know the answer was 'cherry.'

After the excitement of figuring out the clue subsided, realization struck. _We have cherry trees on campus? Where the hell have I been?_ He thought back over his various wanderings through the campus the past three years, trying to remember if he had ever heard about or seen cherry trees.

Suddenly, a memory came back to him.

.

It was spring of freshman year. After a particularly nasty fight with his father that involved a lot of screaming on both ends, he ran off into the woods behind Stuart. He couldn't remember how far he had run through the trees, mind blurred with rage, but when he finally stopped he was in one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen.

At first, all he could see through his tears was soft pink. He rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes. He was standing in a large grove of cherry trees. A soft wind blew through the leaves around him, delicate rosy petals swirling down around him on the cool spring breeze. Despite what he had gone through earlier that day, his surroundings made him forget all of that. He settled against the trunk of one of the larger trees and enjoyed the sunshine filtering through the branches above him.

.

_I spent the entire afternoon in that grove. How did I forget?_ As soon as the memory came back to him, he had taken off from the courtyard in the direction of Stuart. He checked his phone. There was forty-five minutes left in his free period, and he didn't know how far into the woods he had to go to find the cherry trees or in exactly what direction. _They better be close. And they better be the only cherry trees on campus… or at least the only ones that Adam knew about._

He was running through the trees now, brown and green blurring past him on either side. Just when he was about to give up and run in a different direction, a hint of pink caught his eyes in the distance. He picked up his pace.

Entering the grove, he ran to the nearest tree and began searching for the next clue. Finding nothing, he continued to the next tree and then the next, checking every nook and cranny, even digging around the base and roots.

He had only three trees left to comb now. Needless to say, he was getting frustrated. When he was about to take his anger out on a defenseless tree branch, a small piece of plastic and a flash of white caught his eye sticking out of a gap in the tree trunk in front of him. He yanked the plastic bag out and took out the note, unfolding and reading it.

.

_Well you've found the fourth clue. I'd say congratulations, but then again, you don't know how close you are to finding Julian… and I'm __not__ telling you. Here's the next clue, though I doubt it'll help:_

_**Julian's favorite color. **_

_**Find the next clue where the bells chime.**_

.

Logan crumpled the edges of the paper. He could _see_ the smirk Adam had worn while writing this note. Just then, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He flipped the phone open and read the text.

.

_Dude where r u? Murdoch is going to kill you if ur late again! – D_

.

He checked the time. He had 5 minutes to get back to the school before next period started if he didn't want to get a detention. After his disciplinary hearing regarding the destruction of the Stuart Common Room, he was still on probation. "Shit!" Logan ran head long through the forest in the direction of South and Main.

* * *

><p>Logan made it to English class just as the bell rang to begin the period. However, he still received a glare from Murdoch as class began.<p>

To everyone's relief, their discussion of _1984 _and dystopian societies was cut short by the end of the school day. Practically in synchronization, Logan and Derek collected their things and headed to the computer lab. When they reached the door, a closed door and a bright yellow paper stopped them in their tracks.

"What the heck is this?" Derek said, raising an eyebrow. Logan stepped forward to read the sign out loud.

.

_Attention Students and Faculty,_

_The computer lab is closed until further notice. All school computers have been infected by a very malicious virus. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause._

_Thank you for your cooperation,_

_Dean __Elizabeth Ramsey_

.

"I can read you know," Derek rolled his eyes at the blond. "Well this is just wonderful!"

Logan kicked the door in frustration. Then he remembered the offer he had been made earlier. "Wait! I know where we can get some help." He pulled his phone out, planning on texting Blaine, as it vibrated in his hand, making him jump. He looked up and saw that Derek had pulled his phone out too. They looked at each other, both a bit confused, before reading the text message they had both just received.

.

_ATTENTION: Due to the virus rapidly spreading through all Dalton computers, all wifi has been disconnected until further notice for the safety of uninfected computers. Faculty has been informed and assignment due dates will be revised accordingly. Stand by for further information._

.

"WHY?" Logan yelled, along with a few muttered swears, kicking the door repeatedly. A few passing students stopped to stare at the prefect. "What are you looking at? Keep moving!" Just the look in the blond's eyes would have made even the most strong-willed upperclassman flee the area as quickly as possible.

"What do we do now?" Derek asked after Logan had appeared to calm down a little.

"I have no freaking' clue, ok!" Logan turned on Derek, eyes still blazing.

"Calm _down_ man. We'll figure something out."

Logan took some deep breaths, taking the edge off his anger. "We don't have a computer to use, how are we supposed to figure out these clues?"

"We'll… umm… we'll just… I don't know Logan! But we'll think of something! I promise, we will." The two looked at each other for a few moments before breaking eye contact. "What is the next clue, by the way? You did find it during your free period, right?" Logan nodded, took the paper from his pocket, and read the writing aloud. Derek contemplated the clue for a moment before responding. "I should probably know Julian's favorite color… but I don't. God I feel like an awful friend now."

"Don't worry," Logan refolded the paper and placed it back in his pocket, "I don't know either."

"And I can't even begin to think of what that second one means. That rules out finding the fifth clue."

"Same here." Logan sighed. "Let's just go back to Stuart. Maybe we'll think of something there."

* * *

><p>Despite the lack of internet, the boarders of Stuart were all hard at work studying in any way they could, Derek and Logan included. They were lounging in Derek's room, trying to take their minds off not being able to solve the clues, when Logan's phone alarm went off.<p>

He groaned, practically rolling out of his seat. "I have Warbler's practice."

"Have fun," Derek said a little less than enthusiastically without even looking up from his chemistry notes.

"Thanks, I will." Logan rolled his eyes, making his way to Warbler Hall.

Practice went on as usual. During a break from rehearsing the dance steps for one of their numbers, Logan watched Blaine and Kurt cuddling in a corner. Somewhere between feeling jealous towards them for having something that he and Julian might never be able to experience and having all of his teeth fall out from the gut wrenching sweetness of the scene in front of him, Logan thought of an idea. It went against everything he stood for, but this situation called for venturing out of his comfort zone.

He'd get help from the other students.

Out of the hundreds of boys on campus, one of them had to know something about Julian's movies and, who knows, maybe one of them knew his favorite color. It was worth a shot anyways. They didn't need to know the truth of course. He would _never_ tell anyone that. All they needed to know was the lie he had told Kurt and Blaine earlier that day.

His thoughts were interrupted by two short claps. He looked up to see Medel standing in the center of the room. "Ok everyone, back to work. From the top!" Moving to his place on the risers, Logan was feeling a little better. At least now he had a plan to solve these clues and get one step closer to saving Julian.

_I will save him. I have to._ He wouldn't allow his friend to fall into the darkness. Never.

* * *

><p><strong>To be continued<strong>

**A/N: **So I realize in the last chapter, Logan and Derek had to meet up after class to use the computers because they were in different classes at the end of the day. And then in this chapter, they were both in English together at the end of the school day. I'm going to go with this as my explanation:  
>Dalton has a class schedule where the order of classes changes every day. My High School did this so I'm just going to use that (if that explanation doesn't make sense… sorry :( It isn't integral to the story, so I wouldn't really worry too much).<p>

Also, random tidbit time! I keep calling Julian Logan's "friend" because that's what they are. Friends. Albeit, very close friends. They've only gone on one date and didn't exactly get around to the whole boyfriend discussion before Adam showed up.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** Hello everyone :) I know. I failed at updating... again :( I'M SO SORRY! YOU HAVE NO IDEA!

Anyway. As always, thank you to everyone who reads/reviews/favorites/alerts/etc. this story! Also, thank you to everyone who has stuck with me to this chapter, whether you have been here since day 1, just starting it today, or somewhere in between.

This chapter has the promised Julian :D _Finally_. (I know, right?)

So here's chapter 9. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

**_**Disclaimer:** _**_I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 9<strong>

After getting out of an unusually long and intense Warblers practice, Logan returned to Derek's room for the night. He was extremely tired and stressed beyond comprehension. Entering the room, he dramatically dropped into the desk chair with a sigh, collapsing over his homework.

"Long practice?" Derek stared at his notes. He was use to the blond being overly dramatic.

"You have no idea," Logan mumbled into his text books.

Derek glanced up. "Any chance you came up with an idea to solve the clues?"

"Have _you_?" His stress had lowered his practically nonexistent ability to reign in his anger. Logan turned in his chair to look at the athlete, eyes starting to blaze. From the way Derek quickly looked back down at his notes, he knew that meant 'no.' "Of course not." He let out an aggravated groan. "If you really want to know, yes, I did come up with an idea, no thanks to you." The blond turned back to his desk, picking up a pencil from where he had left it earlier. He resumed his math homework, trying to subdue his emerging anger by pressing the lead forcefully into the paper.

A few seconds passed. "Are you going to allow me the privilege of hearing this idea, your majesty, or am I going to have to take up mind reading?"

Logan rolled his eyes. "If you _really_ have to know, I'm - _we're _- going to get help from other people on campus. Out of all the guys here, there has to be at least one person with useless knowledge about Julian."

Derek could hear the restraint in Logan's voice. He needed to choose his words carefully lest he want to endure a practically animalistic Logan. "Well it wouldn't exactly be useless now." He had meant it to be a harmless comment. A joke to lessen the tension between them. It was true after all.

Something hit Derek in the head. Looking down, he saw a calculator on his lap. All the tension returned. "Hey. Calm down before I ignore what happened last night and force feed you your medication!" An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Derek saw Logan flinch, as if the words had made actual impact with his body. The athlete's eyes widened. "Oh m- I didn't mean that Logan. I'd never actually _force_ you to-"

"Whatever." Logan was breathing heavier than normal, obviously trying to hold everything in. He turned back to his homework and mumbled, "Like you would even be able to." A few seconds later, something landed on the desk next to him. His calculator.

"Oops. I missed." Logan turned around, intent on strangling his friend, to see Derek try to hide a small smile in his notebook. Seeing the smile, his rage began to ebb. He took a few deep breaths to help clear the rest of his anger. "You know who you're going to get help from yet?"

"Haven't a clue."

Derek put a pencil to his lip. "Maybe I should think of something else still…"

Logan swiveled back around in his chair. "What? No faith in my plan? Some friend you are."

"It's not that. It's just… I think we should have a back up incase everyone on this campus is as clueless as the two of us. We only have about a day and a half left, you know."

Logan shut his eyes. "_Please_ don't remind me."

"Sorry," Derek said quietly. Even though Logan was fairly good at masking it, the athlete could see the traces of pain on his friend's face. "So, um, this math homework. What'd you get for number 7?"

* * *

><p>Logan hadn't gotten much sleep last night. Derek had forced him to sleep on the couch, which had resulted in a sore neck and aching back. But the uncomfortable "bed" wasn't what had kept Logan up all night. As of midnight, he had exactly a day and a half to find Julian and as he lay there, the time only got shorter and shorter. His mind reeled until he finally dozed off into a restless sleep.<p>

And now he was sitting in art class, bored out of his mind. He was attempting to distract himself by focusing all of his energy on his painting. The lesson was to paint the basket of fruit at the front of the class. Looking back at his canvas, even _he_ wasn't able to see fruit, and he was the one painting it. His painting, if he could even call it that, was nothing more than splotches of color, most unrecognizable as they blended together to form varying shades of brown. "This thing sucks," Logan said quietly as he repeatedly stabbed more yellow onto the canvas where he was pretty sure the banana was suppose to be. He flicked his wrist and splattered more paint across the whole canvas. He whipped his arm back once more, but stopped mid arch when he heard a tiny squeak from his right.

Logan turned to see a small boy standing behind him carrying an armload of paint tubes. His strawberry blond hair was covered in yellow paint. The boy shifted his pile of paint to raise a hand to wipe the paint from his curls, affectively dropping the paint tubes across the floor and practically falling over.

"Umm… Sorry, Reed." Logan turned back to his painting and continued flicking yellow paint in the general area of the banana. _Why is he even in this art class? Isn't he some freakin' art prodigy or something?_

"I-it's ok. I would have gotten paint on myself at some point." Logan heard another tiny squeak. Curious, he turned around to find Reed now on the floor surrounded by his paint tubes. Logan sighed and leaned down to pick up a few of the tubes as Reed righted himself (after slipping on some paint and falling back down to the ground). Once the smaller boy regained his footing, Logan dumped the paint tubes back in his arms, and turned to resume his painting. He paused again when a tiny voice behind him said, "Is that paper one of the clues?"

He whipped his head around. "W-what are you talking about?" There, on the floor between the two Warblers, was a folded piece of notebook paper with the word 'Logan' written on it. _Crap._ Quickly, Logan bent down, swiping the note up and shoving it back into his pocket in one fluid motion.

Almost trying to hide behind his pile of paint, Reed replied, "That paper. Is it one of the clues that Julian gave you?"

Logan's mind was racing. What should he do in this situation? Act dumb? Respond truthfully? Then he remembered something. _Julian took art last semester. Reed takes art _every_ semester… That means they both took art together. And there's that one clue. Maybe… What the hell. He obviously knows too much already._ "Oh… yeah, it is."

"Well… that's cool… good luck?" Reed started to cautiously walk back to his easel.

_Shit. Wait. How do I ask him…? _Logan thought.

"Oh… uh… Kurt told me that, uh, if I came across you and you knew I knew about the clues that, umm, I should ask if you needed any help…" Reeds voice trailed off at the end. There was fear visible in his eyes.

_Well I guess that works._ "Actually, you were in art class with Julian last semester right?"

"Umm y-yes."

"Do you, for any reason, know what Julian's favorite color happens to be?"

Reed thought for a moment before answering. "There was this one project we did last semester, where you had to paint our favorite thing in different shades of our favorite color. Let me think…" A look of great concentration appeared on the Windsor's face. "I remember him painting a hedgehog… in green. It's green! Julian's favorite color is green!"

Logan resisted the urge to jump up and down right there in art class. He now had 3 clues solved. But he still had to solve another clue and find and solve who knows how many more. That thought sobered his enthusiasm. "Thanks." The bell rang to end the class and the school day. Everyone around him began putting away their art supplies and packing up their things, including Reed. The blond caught the smaller boy's attention. "Wait. I still don't know how you found out about the notes. I need to know who to go… talk to after class."

Reed looked a little shaken at the last statement, but obliged. "I heard it from Wes and David… well, it was the twins at first, but I didn't know they were referring to the clues when they ran around the house yelling 'The Cheshire Cat has sent the Knave on a quest!' Wes and David just filled me in. That's when Kurt and Blaine told me to help if I could…"

_Yep. Wes and David are getting it when this is all over._ He couldn't waste any time now though. He needed to get back to Stuart and meet up with Derek. Logan started heading for the door. "Thanks again." A few steps later, he stopped and turned back slightly to the curly-haired boy. "Do _not _tell anyone about this conversation or the clues, got it?" Without waiting for a response, the blond turned back away from the wide eyed boy and headed for his building.

Half way across the lawn back to Stuart, two people suddenly appeared, one on each side. They both threw one arm over the Prefect's shoulders. "You guys need to _stop_ doing that!" Logan shrugged off their arms and continued in the direction of Stuart. The twins instantly linked hands behind the Prefect.

"Oh silly Knave…"

"you know us better than to think…

"we'd ever do what you're suggesting." The two smiled at Logan.

"What do you want? And be quick because I kind of have stuff to do."

The twins looked at each other from either side of Logan before one of them started their response. "Well we know about the clues the Cat has given you…"

"But we don't know why the Cat has given them to you."

"Care to inform us?" The two chorused.

"And no making anything up."

"Because we all know the Cat isn't still sick…"

"and you two were just on a date Sunday night." The two boys stared Logan down, waiting for a response.

Logan stopped in his tracks. "First of all, you two need to explain why you were _running around Windsor freakin' screaming about me and Julian!_"

"Not screaming."

"Merely exclaiming."

"Fine. Why were you _exclaiming_?" He really didn't need to deal with this right now.

"We just got a bit excited…"

"that our Cat had sent…"

"our Knave on a little quest."

"We couldn't hold it in," they proclaimed together.

"Well just don't do it again." Logan glared at the two Windsors.

"Oh, we won't…"

"if you tell us why you're on this quest…"

"to begin with."

"Now answer our question."

"We did ask you first."

"I can't." Logan started walking again, picking up the pace in an attempt to get away from the twins faster.

"Now why not?"

"I just _can't_, alright? _Now lay off_!" Logan practically screamed at the pair.

The twins stopped abruptly. "Well the Knave…"

"is a bit feisty today."

Logan kept walking towards Stuart. He could see it in the distance now.

The two Windsors popped back up on both sides of the Prefect again. "It's ok."

"You don't have to tell us."

"But you should know…"

"that you'll be the cause of our deaths."

"Just like that cat you hear so much about."

"Poor thing died of curiosity." The twins' hands covered their hearts, faces twisting in mock agony.

"You know what? Just for that comment, I'm not telling you two anything."

Evan and Ethan's faces fell. "We'd still like to help though." They said together.

"You know what… fine." He stopped and fished the fourth clue out of his pocket and read it. "I have to 'find the next clue where the bells chime.' Any idea where that could be?" Logan was losing his patients. _But these two knuckle heads might be able to help. Just stay calm. You're almost back to Stuart anyway. _He looked up from the page to see the twin blonds standing in mirror image of each other. They were staring off at the sky, stroking their non-existent beards, apparently deep in thought. _What even… This is worse than Blaine and Kurt yesterday._

"Got it!" The two yelled simultaneously, making Logan jump.

"Well…" The Stuart cocked an eyebrow.

"Ok. So there are two options."

"One is the old church by the graveyard."

"There's a bell in there."

"Or..."

"it's in the school somewhere."

"You know…"

"school bells?"

"But I wouldn't exactly say the bell in school _'chimes'_…"

"Yes. More of a ding I would say."

"But we think it's close enough for your purposes." The two crossed their arms behind their backs, waiting for some kind of response.

Logan's mind was working in overdrive, trying to decide which of the two choices could be the right one. _It can't be the school. The second clue was hidden there, in Warbler Hall… But it couldn't be the church. That's by the graveyard, where the third clue was… Wait why can't two clues be hidden in the same place? I'm an idiot. Of course they could. So it could still be either one._

Logan was snapped out of his thoughts by a voice next to him. "You alright Knave?"

"You seemed to have zoned out there for a bit."

"Uh… nope, nope. I'm good. Thanks. Now if you don't mind, I'll be leaving now." Without waiting for a response from the twins, he changed his course and headed towards the little chapel by the graveyard, pulling out his phone as he went.

"Bye Knave."

"Good luck with the Cheshire Cat!"

.

_Hey. I think I know where the next clue is. Where r u? – L_

_WHAT? WHERE? I'm at crew practice – D_

_Not sure exactly. When ur done rowing your little boat, go check the school. I'm checking somewhere else. – L_

_I'm going to ignore that first comment. But, sure I'll look. Thanks for asking first. – D_

_But seriously, where in the school? – D_

_No clue. But it has to do with a bell – L_

_Well thanks for narrowing that down – D_

_I have to get back to practice. The coach is giving me evil glares. I'll get out of here as quick as I can – D_

.

Logan rolled his eyes as he shoved his phone back into his pocket and ran faster now that the old chapel was visible in the distance.

The building stood on a small hill adjacent to the graveyard the third clue had been found in. The stone walls were barely visible behind the ivy that crawled up to the eaves and to the very top of the steeple. Bright afternoon sun reflected off the tall slender stain glass windows that broke up what would otherwise be a wall of deep green.

Running up the steps, Logan found something he wasn't expecting. There was a chain thread through the door handles and a large padlock holding the oak doors securely shut. "Of course the doors are locked!" He reached up and pulled hard on the handles, kicking the doors a few times for good measure. Neither the doors nor the chain would budge. He didn't blame Mr. Tamerlane. If he were caretaker, he'd want the doors to a building like this locked too with the Windsors running around, especially Evan and Ethan.

Logan walked back down the steps and took a look at the chapel. _How the hell am I going to get in?_... _Maybe a window?_ He began walking around the building, taking a close look at the stained glass. Unfortunately, the windows did not appear to be able to open and all of them were intact. Half way down the last side of the chapel, his eyes were drawn to the steeple and the winding ivy that lead straight to the roof. Through the vegetation, he could see that the top of the steeple had openings on all four sides. He knew the chapel had two bells. You could hear them clear across campus every hour. _Where the bells chime._ Up there, in that steeple, was the most likely place for the next clue to be hidden… if it was in the chapel at all. _So I have to get up there… but the doors are locked and I can't get in through the windows._ Logan eyed the vines again. _It looks like there's only one way in. _He started walking to the next corner of the building to get closer to the steeple when he tripped over something. Looking down, he saw a small door on the ground, like the ones that lead to underground storm shelters. He shifted some vegetation off to see what seemed to be a door leading to what he could assume was the basement of the chapel… and it wasn't locked. _Score! This is defiantly better than breaking my neck climbing that ivy._ Quickly, he flung the door open and managed to squeeze through the small opening.

As he had expected, it was dark in the basement. Logan pulled out his cell phone and used it as a flashlight. From what he could see in the limited light, there was a set of stairs a few feet away. Carefully, he walked through the empty room and up the wooden steps. He turned the knob of the door at the top of the stairs and it creaked open.

Logan came out standing next to the pulpit at the front of the chapel. This room looked like any other church he had ever seen, except a lot dirtier. From what he knew of the few churches he had been in, the door to the bell tower was probably at the back near the main door. He put his phone back into his pocket. Ignoring the dirt incrusted carpets and the hundreds of cob webs and dust bunnies, he walked off the platform and down the center isle to the back of the chapel.

Logan walked through a set of open doors into the foyer and looked around. To his right, he saw what he was looking for. Against the wall was a wooden ladder leading to a hatch in the ceiling. He mounted the ladder and made his way to the hatch, pushing it open and pulling himself into the attic.

Pulling out his phone again, Logan surveyed his surroundings. The attic was very much like the basement, dark and empty. The only difference was another, taller ladder on the wall next to him leading up an opening in the ceiling where he could see the bells. _Here we go._ Logan made it up the ladder and into the steeple quickly.

He pulled himself onto the platform that ran around the steeple. Immediately, he began looking over the bell in front of him. The bells hung next to each other, the bottoms at the height of Logan's chest. Not finding anything in his survey of the first bell, he scooted around the narrow platform and checked the second. Holding onto the railing for support, he reached his other hand into the bell. His fingers brushed against something that wasn't metal. Heart leaping, Logan reached further and grabbed what he hoped to be the clue.

A groan and a loud crack resounded through the small space. He looked behind him to see that the wooden railing he had been holding onto had snapped under the stress he had put on it to reach further. Before he could do anything, he was falling forward towards the bell… and the opening in the floor. Logan's eyes widen as he grabbed the bell in front of him, trying to regain his footing on the platform. His feet slipped. His heart began to race as he hugged the bell, now hanging at least fifteen feet above the attic floor below.

Taking a deep breath, he began to swing back and forth, hoping whatever was holding the bells up wouldn't break under the added stress of his body weight. As the bell softly chimed, Logan reached out his foot, grazing the wooden ledge. A few more swings and the blond managed to get one foot securely set. With some effort, he got his other foot onto the ledge and pushed off the bell. He clung to the railing, which was still intact on this side, breathing quickly. That was way too close. Logan didn't want to think about how he had almost fallen, possibly to his death from a broken neck or back. He just wanted to get down to the ground again. He practically slide down both ladders, ran through the main chapel, down the stairs, and back outside.

With grass underfoot once more, Logan unfolded to paper still clutched in his hand and read it in the light of the setting sun.

.

_It seems you've found the fifth clue. If you've gotten this far, you've probably cheated. You know what the punishment is for that. Here's the clue regardless:_

_**The last name of Julian's third cousin on**_** Something Damaged**_**.**_

_Oh look, this is the last clue. Though, like I said, you probably cheated to get this far. No one knows Julian as well as I do. So just give up now. Julian's better off without someone like you._

.

_Oh my… the last clue… THIS IS THE LAST CLUE!_ "YES!" Logan screamed, causing a bird to fly out of a nearby tree at the sudden noise. His was in the process of jumping up and down when his phone vibrated in his pocket. Pulling his phone out, he read the message.

.

_Heading out of practice now. Where do u think I should I check first? – D_

_Don't bother. I found it. Just go back 2 Stuart – L_

.

Logan threw his phone back in his pocket, ignoring it when it went off again. Still clutching the note in his hand, he ran back to Stuart.

As he neared the front steps, Derek ran into view. "It's the last one Derek!" Logan waved the note in the air as they reached the front door at the same time.

"Wait… REALLY? Well let's go solve it then!"

"And the third clue… we still haven't solved the clue we found in the graveyard."

"Oh right… I forgot… But we're so close." Derek grinned widely before climbing the stairs to his room.

Logan gave a little grin. They were close, but they still had two clues to solve. _And I have no idea where to find the answer to either of them._ It was going to be a long night.

* * *

><p>"I don't mean to be creepy, but I know so much about you already. What would you like to know about me?" The Hanover smiled widely, placing a hand over the actor's bound ones.<p>

Julian smiled back. "Um. Ok. Let me think… what's your favorite food?" He leaned forward, as if to hear the answer better.

"Oh. Tough one. I'm going to have to go with… roast turkey." He closed his eyes. "Yum. I'd really like some roast turkey right now." Opening his eyes, Adam looked back at Julian. "I'm starving. What about you?"

"Oh my gosh that sound so good right now. Definitely!" Julian answered eagerly, nodding his head in response.

"Good. I know how much you love turkey sandwiches, so I'll pick up some bread and stuff too." Adam stood up and walked towards the door.

"This sounds awesome! I can't wait!"

"Alright. I'll be back soon. Don't miss me too much cutie pie."

"I'll be missing you every second you're not here darling."

Standing in the open doorway, the Hanover gave the actor a wink. "I think you've made some major improvements over the past two days. I like it. Maybe we'll be able to take the rope off when we head out tomorrow." As he closed the door, Adam added, "See you in a few sweetheart." The lock clicked as the sound of footsteps retreated.

As soon as the door closed, Julian's expression and posture immediately changed. He slumped over the desk, resting his head on the ever present pillow. He didn't know how much longer he could keep this charade up. He was a good actor, but not that good. Instinctually, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the piece of folded paper. Adam had left the light on this time, so he unfolded it and read the writing.

.

_Princess,_

_Gone to get ready. Didn't want to wake you. Be back soon with a surprise._

_~Your Squid_

.

A smile, a _real_ smile, found its way onto Julian's face_. I don't know how much more of this I can take. But everything's going as planned. We're going to get through this Logan. I know it._

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** So there you have it. Chapter 9. The end is in sight everyone! I only have a few more chapters planned.

And I know I say this every time, but I really want to update sooner next time! Granted, I'm not sure how that's going to work out it Mama CP ends up updated this weekend like she's planning to... I may be crying in a corner for a few days after the next episode... so we'll see.

Until next time, please review :D Thanks for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** Hi again! I wanted to get the next chapter up before Dalton was updated :)

The song in this chapter is "Keep Holding On" by Avril Lavigne.

THANK YOU FOR THE REVIEWS!

I hope you enjoy this chapter :)

_Disclaimer: __I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 10<strong>

With the internet access still out, there wasn't much to do. While most of the other students spent the early spring evening outside, Thursday night found Derek and Logan studying and brainstorming. Sometime around 2 the next morning, the two Stuarts passed out.

* * *

><p>Logan woke up sprawled across his homework. Straightening up, he stretched the out the knots in his back and neck. <em>I really need to stop falling asleep on things that aren't beds.<em>

The room was dark. Not even a hint of light came through the window. Fumbling through the objects on Derek's desk, Logan's hand closed around his phone. He hit a button and checked the time. The display read "4:32am." _It's way to freakin' early to be awake._ Grumbling he got up and stumbled in his half awake state to the couch. It was really uncomfortable, but it was better than sleeping in a chair.

Logan curled up on the cushions, drifting back to sleep, when his eyes flew open. He bolted upright. It was 4:32am… on Friday… that meant less than 8 hours to find Julian… and they still had to solve 2 clues, which they hadn't even figured out _how_ they were going to solve in the first place…

Logan's pulse and breathing quickened. He knew he had been having too many of these freak outs over the past week, but he couldn't help it. As soon as thoughts of the diminishing time frame left to find the actor entered the prefect's mind, all his other thoughts from the past few days came back as well. The flood gates had opened.

His mind was reeling with "What if's" as he sat on the couch. As he thought of the possibilities of what might happen if he were too late, something new, but not unfamiliar, crept up on Logan. Under the blanket of panic, an all too familiar rage became to bubble up in response to the choice actions he wanted to take against a certain Hanover.

He was slowly losing control.

But he couldn't. He wouldn't let himself. Not after the demolished Common Room from a month ago or his twice destroyed bedroom of the past week. He needed to think of something quickly before the anger became too much for him to bear.

He could always wake up Derek… No. He wasn't a child. He could fix this himself.

The thought came to him out of nowhere. It was an obvious choice to help the situation. _Why didn't I think of that sooner?_

As quietly as he could under his impending destructive anger, Logan tip-toed out of Derek's room and down the hall. Stuart was quiet. All the boarders were either asleep or silently studying in their rooms due to curfew.

Making his way down the stairs, Logan entered the Common Room and shut the door behind him. Seeing the room completely empty, as he had expected, he made his way to the baby grand piano in the corner of the room.

Logan sat at the piano, running his fingers lightly over the ivory and ebony keys. Singing always seemed to make everything better. Whether it was to let out his frustrations or keep from entering overwhelming levels of rage, letting his feelings out in song was the best way he knew to deal with times when he couldn't put anything into words; and this was definitely one of those times.

He knew he wanted to, needed to sing, right now… he just didn't know what. After a few moments, the perfect song came to mind. His fingers hesitantly glided over the piano keys, giving off a sad melody. Then Logan started to softly sing, barely able to even hear himself.

_You're not alone__  
><em>_Together we stand__  
><em>_I'll be by your side, you know I'll take your hand__  
><em>_When it gets cold__  
><em>_And it feels like the end__  
><em>_There's no place to go__  
><em>_You know I won't give in__  
><em>_No I won't give in_

He had had his doubts over the past few days, that he'd never be able to figure all these clues out and find Julian in time. Each time he had almost given in. Thankfully, Derek had been there to pull him through. But Logan knew that no matter how many more times he felt like he wasn't good enough or strong enough to move forward, he would never let himself give in. Never.

_Keep holding on__  
><em>_'Cause you know we'll make it through, we'll make it through__  
><em>_Just stay strong__  
><em>_'Cause you know I'm here for you, I'm here for you__  
><em>_There's nothing you could say__  
><em>_Nothing you could do__  
><em>_There's no other way when it comes to the truth__  
><em>_So keep holding on__  
><em>_'Cause you know we'll make it through, we'll make it through__  
><em>

He willed his plea to travel the unknown distance between Dalton and wherever Julian was being held. _Just keep holding on Jules. Stay strong. I'm coming for you._

_So far away__  
><em>_I wish you were here__  
><em>_Before it's too late, this could all disappear__  
><em>_Before the doors close__  
><em>_And it comes to an end__  
><em>_With you by my side I will fight and defend__  
><em>_I'll fight and defend__  
><em>_Yeah, yeah_

Even though Logan had no clue where Julian was, he felt the actor's presents beside him as tears started to brim in his eyes. In his mind, there was no question about it. He'd fight until the very end to get Julian away from that psycho, not matter what it took.

_Keep holding on__  
><em>_'Cause you know we'll make it through, we'll make it through__  
><em>_Just stay strong__  
><em>_'Cause you know I'm here for you, I'm here for you__  
><em>_There's nothing you could say__  
><em>_Nothing you could do__  
><em>_There's no other way when it comes to the truth__  
><em>_So keep holding on__  
><em>_'Cause you know we'll make it through, we'll make it through_

His voice and playing grew stronger, his emotion overtaking his better judgment to not wake the sleeping Stuarts. That's the reason he had picked the common room over the keyboard in his room; a better chance of not being overheard.

_Hear me when I say, when I say I believe__  
><em>_Nothing's gonna change, nothing's gonna change destiny__  
><em>_Whatever's meant to be will work out perfectly__  
><em>_Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah_

The tears started spilling from Logan's eyes. He didn't sing the next stanza, opting to play through it instead. Reaching the chorus, he resumed singing, voice filling with more feeling and conviction than he thought was possible.

_Keep holding on__  
><em>_'Cause you know we'll make it through, we'll make it through__  
><em>_Just stay strong__  
><em>_'Cause you know I'm here for you, I'm here for you__  
><em>_There's nothing you could say__  
><em>_Nothing you could do__  
><em>_There's no other way when it comes to the truth__  
><em>_So keep holding on__  
><em>_'Cause you know we'll make it through, we'll make it through__  
><em>

Logan realized he wasn't just singing this song to Julian. He was singing it to himself, too. He was telling himself to keep holding on; he needed to hold on through all the negative thoughts.

And he knew he could do it, if only for Julian's sake, because he knew he wasn't strong enough to do it alone.

_Keep holding on__  
><em>_Keep holding on_

Logan didn't realize his playing and singing were getting louder as the song continued. It wasn't loud enough to wake up the other boys, but it was loud enough to just barely carry to the second floor dorms.

_There's nothing you could say__  
><em>_Nothing you could do__  
><em>_There's no other way when it comes to the truth__  
><em>_So keep holding on__  
><em>_'Cause you know we'll make it through, we'll make it through_

The Common Room door opened slowly as the last few piano notes dissipated in the air. Logan bent over the keys, allowing his tears to flow down his cheeks freely. He felt a familiar hand on his shoulder. Scooting over on the piano bench without looking up, Logan allowed Derek to sit on the edge. The athlete gave the singer a one armed hug and allowed Logan to cry into his shoulder, not saying a word. Logan would talk to him when he was ready. Derek wasn't going to rush him.

* * *

><p>Logan woke up a few hours later on Derek's bed. Looking around the room, he saw light coming from under the now closed shade. He turned to see the alarm clock on Derek's night stand. It was just after 6. Normally the blond didn't get up until sometimes around 7 so he closed his eyes and tried to catch a few more minutes of sleep before the alarm went off.<p>

Just as his mind started to cloud and drift, a loud rumbling noise woke him put. Logan's eyes shot open at the unexpected disturbance. He heard the noise again. Raising himself on an elbow, he looked for the source of the irritating sound. As another rumble resonated through the room, Logan's eyes came to rest on Derek. The athlete was sprawled out on the couch, lying on his back with one arm over his head, the other dangling over the side. From his wide open mouth came another rumble. He was snoring.

Groaning, Logan flipped onto his stomach and covered his head with a pillow. The effort was futile. Even under the layers of fabric and down, he could still hear the snoring.

_I give up._ Way more irritated than he should be this early in the morning, Logan swung his legs off the bed and stood up. He made his way across the room, not bothering to remain silent. _He deserves to be woken up at the freaking crack of dawn._ Muttering a few choice words, Logan slipped out of Derek's room, slamming the door, and made down the hall to his own to get ready for the day.

* * *

><p>Logan leaned over the papers spread across the table. He was sitting in the almost empty library, scanning over the clues in front of him. He had completely forgotten that his free period was first thing this morning. Normally he would have slept in or caught up on homework curled up in an armchair in the Stuart common room. Unfortunately, he hadn't remembered until he was already in South, heading to what he thought was his first class.<p>

He had decided to camp out in the library for the hour instead of heading back up to the dorm and then having to trek all the way back. So he was sitting alone at a large table in the back corner of the Dalton library with the five notebook pages spread out in front of him.

This was it. Everything he needed, or at least as much information as he was going to get, was lying in front of him. He read over the clue answers in order.

Ohio, Five, the third still needed to be solved, Green, and the unsolved fifth.

_Yep. This is working out brilliantly. _There was no way he was going to get anything out of these clues unless he had them _all_ solved.

Logan checked his phone for the umpteenth time in the past 5 minutes. Ever second that passed trying to solve these clues was another second closer to being too late. Out of sheer frustration, the prefect rested his elbows on the table and buried his head in his hands. He took a few calming breaths, trying to get his thoughts under control. _You can do this. You can. You just need to think of the right person to ask. Ok. The last two clues have to do with his career. Who on campus would know about that?_

As if to answer his question, he heard a voice say, "Um… if you don't mind me asking… are those the clues I've heard about?"

Logan hadn't been paying enough attention to recognize the voice. Looking up, he was surprised at whom he saw. "Merril?"

"Uh… hi." The Hanover gave a smile and a little wave. "I'm sorry if I'm being too forward, but I couldn't help but notice how upset you looked… so I thought I'd come over to see what was wrong." Logan could see real concern in her eyes.

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he responded. "I'm fine, just a little aggravated. Let me guess, you found out about the clues from either David and Wes or the twins."

"Both, actually."

_Does everyone in this damn school know about the clues?_

Seeing the questioning look underlying the slight anger beginning to cloud the Stuart's face, Merril decided she should probably explain. "On Wednesday, during lunch, Spencer and I went over to say hi to Justin. Justin and Charlie were sitting together, as usual. When we got to their table, David and Wes were bounding over to the table and, well, you probably know what happened. Those two are some of the biggest gossips in this school. Then a minute later, the twins came over and said something like 'the Cheshire's sent the Knave on a quest!' to Charlie." She rolled her eyes, laughing a bit. "Don't worry. I haven't told anyone, myself. I figured it wasn't something you actually wanted going around." She shrugged.

"Thanks for that…" The two fell into an awkward silence.

"So… do you need any help? If the clues have anything to do with Julian's work, I might be of some help… because I may have seen most of his movies and kind of watch _Something Damaged_ religiously…"

Logan was a second away from telling Merril 'thanks but no thanks' when he remembered what the two unsolved clues were. "Actually… I think you can help." Frantically, he picked up the third and fifth clues. "Ok. One of them is '_The movie in which Julian played a character whose name started with the same letter as his onscreen love interest_'."

Merril slid into the seat across from Logan. From the way her eyes seemed to unfocus, he could tell she was really thinking about this. "Ooo. I think I have it! There was this movie from about a year ago or so called _The Street_. Julian played a guy named Holden and the lead actress played a woman named Holly. That was really quite a good movie," she added as almost an afterthought.

Logan restrained the urge to jump in his seat. He was in public after all. "Ok. The other is "_The last name of Julian's third cousin on _Something Damaged'."

"I'm guessing that actually means Grant's third cousin?" Merril chuckled. "I think Julian had a little too much fun writing these clues out, don't you think?"

Logan's heart hurt hearing that. But she didn't know Julian hadn't really written the clues, so he had to play along. "Oh… um… yeah."

"Let me think." She rested an elbow on the table, cradling her cheek in her hand. The same unfocused look returned to her eyes. "I… I don't think they've ever said who Grant's third cousin is."

_Wonderful. Adam would obviously give me an unsolvable clue._

Suddenly, Merril's head snapped up. "Hold on a second… let me think about this. So if a second cousin is your cousin' cousin, then a third cousin, by the same logic, would be a second cousin's cousin… in other words, your cousin's cousin's cousin."

"Sure."

"Alright… I'm going to have to think this out loud if you don't mind…"

"Whatever helps."

Merril started to mutter under her breath, speaking more to herself than the prefect. "Ok. The only cousin Grant is ever mentioned having is Trevor… Cousins of Trevor, cousins of Trevor… Oh. Mable!... Yep, just Mable. Alright… Wait… Both her parents are only children… I remember them making a point about that in that episode Adam Gregory guest starred in as Gran't long-lost brother… Shoot… But that can't be… Hold it. They were talking about her dad and STEP-mother in the episode. And her birth mother has that sister who had an illegitimate son with what's-his-face back in season one… He had his mother's last name…" Merril sat in concentration for a few moments. "Bedford!"

Logan jumped at the sudden proclamation. "Are you sure?"

"Positive." She gave him a small and a nod.

"Well… thanks for the help. Those were the last two clues I had to solve."

"I'm glad I could help." She stood, pushing in her chair, and picked up her bag from the floor.

There was a question that had been nagging Logan's subconscious since Monday. Why has no one commented on Adam's disappearance? "Hold on a second."

Merril turned back around. "Yes?"

_How do I phrase this?..._ "Umm… How's Adam? I know Julian's been asking Derek about him lately. I guess he hasn't seen him in a while."

"I heard Adam was sick. I overheard Justin and Charlie talking about some bug that's going around. Half of Windsor's got it now. Apparently Adam went home he was so sick. Poor thing… You know, it's probably what Julian has, too. He's been sick for over a month now hasn't he?" Logan nodded. "Well, tell Julian to get well soon when you see him. Let's hope neither of us catches it."

"Yeah. That would suck."

"Oh. And could you ask Julian where he got the pen he used to write those notes? That shade of red is really pretty."

Logan's heart raced. He had totally forgotten the notes were written in blood. He had pushed that thought out of his mind long ago in order to be able to even look at the notes. But the writing was so fine, it was hard to tell exactly what it was written in unless you really looked at it… which Merril had obviously not done. _If only she knew…_

"Of course." Logan gave her a forced smile.

"Thanks. See you later." Merril waved.

"Yep. Bye." Logan returned the wave as he watched Merril turn the corner around the book shelf.

_Holy crap… wait… that was the last clue… All the clues are solved!_ He checked his phone, seeing that he still had another fifteen minutes until his free period was over. He placed the clues in order once more and read the answers.

Ohio, Five, Street, Green, and Bedford.

_What the hell is that suppose to mean?_ He sat there staring at the clues for a good five minutes, still unable to make any sense out of them. Just when he was about to do something irrational and stupid, like knock all the books off a nearby shelf in pure rage, Logan noticed something he hadn't seen before. On the first note they had found, there was a tiny number five in the upper right hand corner, barely big enough to read. He frantically picked up the second clue and looked at the upper right hand corner. Sure enough, there was a tiny number there. A one. He picked up the remaining notes, finding a different number in each of the top corners. _Maybe…_ He had an idea.

Using the numbers in the top corner instead of the order in which he had found the clues, Logan laid out the papers. He reread the answers.

5, Green, Street, Bedford, and Ohio

_WAIT… 5 Green Street, Bedford, Ohio… it's an address. It's a freaking address!_ Logan couldn't help but throw his hands into the air. He'd done it. He knew where Julian was… or at least he knew where Adam _wanted_ him to think Julian was. That was a chance Logan was willing to take.

He checked his phone. It was nearly nine O'clock. He'd driven past Bedford a few times on his way to Cleveland. He knew it took a good two hours to get to Bedford from Westerville… and that was with no traffic. But it was Friday. That meant lots of people heading out for weekend trips, especially since the weather was starting to get nice again.

Three hours. That's all the time he had left to get to Julian before Adam took him to who knows where. _Probably even less than that…_ Knowing Adam, he'd move Julian as soon as he was ready, whether he stuck to his pre-conceived schedule or not. The sooner he got the Bedford, the better.

Derek. Logan still needed to tell him somehow. But the athlete was at a school permitted crew practice to get ready for their big meet next week. There was no way Derek would be able to get out of that… and the team wasn't due back in class until ten O'clock. _I can't wait for him to get out of practice. I have to go_ now_._

It was then that he knew what he needed to do. Screw the fact that he was going to get detention and probably lose his position as prefect for good from leaving campus during school hours. Logan had already come to terms with this during one of his many late night musings since the kidnapping. But now he had also decided on something else; he'd need to go without Derek. He'd probably regret the decision later, but he knew this was the only way.

_I'll text Derek when I'm almost there and tell him to call the police. That way, I should be out of there with Julian before the cops show up. Adam won't have had time to get away. Yes. That works._

He slung his bag over his shoulder and made his way to the student parking lot. He jumped into his car, buckling his seat belt as he drove towards the entrance, and drove towards Bedford, Ohio. He thanked Michele for making him get the built-in GPS.

_I'm coming Jules. I'm coming._

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><p><strong>AN:** So I hope you liked the chapter. I hope that Merril's characterization will be ok since we haven't actually met her in canon yet...


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** Hello again to all of my wonderful readers! I LOVE YOU ALL! *bear hug*

Ok, so this chapter is a lot shorter than what I've been writing. It's only a little longer than chapter 2. I meant for chapter 11 to be _much_ longer, but after writing what I have here, I needed a little break (and I got writer's block again. Grrrrr). I really wanted to get something to you all before "Dalton" was updated, so I decided to post what I had written. That being said, this chapter leaves off on a MAJOR cliffhanger!

So... this is probably the most intense thing I have ever written. It's really not that bad though, I don't think. But I will completely understand if you want to wait until recovering from the Dalton update to read this. Or, you could use this has preperation for the upsetting things Mama CP has hinted at happening in Ep 26 (seeing has her writing is about 1 million times better than mine).

Either way, I hope you enjoy this new chapter! Please Review. Reviews would be AWESOME :D

_Disclaimer: __I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._

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><p><strong>Chapter 11<strong>

Logan drove as fast as he possibly could without the risk of getting pulled over. While it would obviously take longer to get to Bedford driving the speed limit, he didn't have time to deal with the police. If he got pulled over, he couldn't exactly explain why he was going so fast. _"I'm sorry but my best friend has been kidnapped by a crazed psychopath. I'm on my way to save him. Now excuse me while I continue to speed." _Yeah. That would go over well.

Thankfully, there wasn't as much traffic as he had expected, so he was making good time. Logan's eyes darted from the road to the clock every minute or so. He was making good time, but he wished he could get there faster.

"In one mile, take exit right." The sudden noise made Logan jump. He'd completely forgotten about his GPS since it had been silent for the past two hour or so he had been on the highway. Suddenly, he realized what this meant. His adrenaline began pumping. He knew Bedford was located just off the highway. He was so close.

As Logan pulled off the highway and drove through the streets of the town, his eyes darted to the clock once more. 11:08am.

Less than a minute later, and to his great relief, the GPS announced, "Arriving at destination on left." Logan pulled the car over and jumped out.

Logan had been so determined to get to his destination that he hadn't taken the time to look around yet. In front of him was a small office building, only a few floors high. The building was a little worse for wear, but it still looked useable. The chain link fence around the property was intact, weeds running along the bottom, growing upwards and intertwining with the links. The gate, however, was the one exception to the somewhat maintained area. While one gate still looked as it probably had when it was first erected, the other hung sideways on its hinges, slightly ajar, as if someone had forced it open to the point of breaking.

Logan made his way to the gate, pushing it open more. The bottom scraped against the concrete underneath, but the blond was able to get it open enough to squeeze through. He made his way across the cracked and weed-filled parking lot, breaking into a run when he saw the front door of the building.

Reaching the door, Logan yanked on it with all his might. Surprisingly, it swung open with ease, sending the prefect tumbling back a few steps. _You think Adam would have made it a little more difficult to get in… Shit. Maybe I'm not in the right place. Maybe I figured out the clues wrong. Dammit, I CAN'T BE WRONG!_ With that thought, Logan entered the building, praying that he was in the right place… because if he wasn't, he knew he wouldn't have time to resolve the clues and make it to Julian before noon.

The inside of the building looked worse than the outside. _Now I see why they closed this place down._ Dust incrusted the carpet. Spider webs hung from every corner. Light fixtures were cracked. Wall paper was peeling. The place smelled like an animal had died in it (which Logan figured was very plausible). While Logan really hoped that Julian was somewhere in this building, a small part of him wished that he wasn't. He couldn't imagine Julian spending almost a week somewhere like this.

Logan stood in the foyer. _Now what?_ He had no clue where to start looking. He knew (hoped, really) Julian was somewhere at this address, but where in the building was another story. Spotting a door, Logan walked over to it. _Well I have to start somewhere, I guess._ Slowly, he turned the handle and walked into the room.

Unfortunately, Logan didn't find any sign of Julian or Adam in that room… or the next… or the next. He went through every room on every story until he reached the fifth floor. He looked at his phone. 11:45am. _This is it... The top floor. If I don't find him here, then I'm screwed._ Taking a few steps towards the first door, he paused. _Are_ _those voices?_ He took a few more steps towards the noise, ending up at a closed door halfway down the hall. Pressing his ear against the wood, he heard what were definitely voices… and the word 'Julian.'

Logan stifled a gasp, not wanting to give away that he was there before the time was right. As quietly as possible, he opened the door.

The large room was just as rundown as the rest of the building, which didn't surprise him at all. Silently closing the door, he tip-toed further into the room. There was no sign of anyone, but he could still hear a voice coming from somewhere nearby. Looking around for some sign of movement, he spotted a door standing open a few inches, light coming from inside the room. Looking down at the carpet, Logan saw a distinct trail in the thick layer of dust leading from the main door to this side-room. _That has to be it._ He quickly made his way to the wall beside the door, pressing his back against it. The voices were definitely coming from inside this room.

"Oh Julian, I'm so excited! Only ten more minutes before we leave this awful place. The car is all packed up, ready and waiting. Now let me get that rope off your wrists. You don't need it anymore, sweetie pie."

Logan's stomach flipped. _Ropes?… on his wrists?... That bastard tied him up?_ Rage was building inside him. But he needed to suppress it, at least for now. He needed to keep his thoughts straight for as long as possible in a situation like this, where he'd need to react at a moment's notice.

"Thanks honey. Where are we off to anyways?"

His head snapped up at the second voice. If Logan thought the first voice was disturbing, this was even worse. His stomach dropped. _Was that Julian… calling him honey…? What the hell is going on?_

"Just because you keep asking doesn't mean I'm going to give in and tell you. I've told you before, it's a _surprise_!" He heard footsteps approaching the door. "I'm so glad that idiot didn't figure out those clues. You're going to be so much better off without him. _We're_ going to be so much better off."

There was a pause before the reply came. "Yeah. So much better off."

The door opened. Adam and Julian walked out without seeing Logan, who was still pressed against the wall. Just as the blond was about to make his presence known, he noticed something that completely broke him; the two were holding hands. Logan felt his blood boil. _WHAT DID ADAM DO TO JULES?_ He knew there was no way Julian would hold hands with a crazed stalker fanboy who had kidnapped him without having had something terribly wrong happen.

He couldn't hold his anger in any longer. Logan launched himself off the wall towards Adam, "Get away from him you bastard!"

The other two turned quickly at the sound of the unexpected voice. Before Logan could get a hold of him, Adam let go of Julian's hand and pushed the prefect back into the wall. Logan's back made contact, pain shooting up his spine. "No. You get away from us!"

The Hanover and the prefect stood glaring at each other, eyes blazing and already breathing heavily. Julian stood to the side, looking back and forth between the two with a worried expression.

"Adam. What did you do to him?" Logan said bitterly through clenched teeth.

"What do you mean 'what did you do to him'? I didn't do anything…"

"You know what I mean. Why is he holding freaking hands with you?"

"Oh. I didn't do that. You see, Julian came to a realization all by himself. He finally saw the truth: that I have always been the perfect match for him and loving you was merely a mistake." Adam looked over to Julian, expression changing to one filled with pure endearment. "But I forgive you sweetie. We all make mistakes sometimes."

Logan looked at Julian, waiting for a reaction. The actor looked back at the Hanover. "Julian, what are you doing?" Logan asked. But the actor didn't reply. He just kept looking at Adam, as if nothing else in the world existed at that moment. Logan's attention snapped back to Adam. "I'm taking Julian back to Dalton with me! Remember what you said in your clues? If I solved them all and made it here before noon today, you would let Julian come back with me! NOW LET HIM GO!"

Adam turned back to the blond. "You silly, silly boy. You think I ever had the intention of letting Julian leave with you?" He saw a confused look appear on Logan's face. "Ugh. I'm going to have to explain it to you, aren't I? You really are an _idiot_." The Hanover rolled his eyes. "You see, I left those clues for you, not with the intention of allowing you to prove your love for Julian, but for an entirely different reason. I figured, if you couldn't solve those clues before I left with Julian today, there was very little chance that you'd ever be able to find us. However," Adam took a step towards Logan, "if you were able to figure out the clues - which apparently you were, congratulations by the way, I underestimated you – then there was a chance you would find us once we were gone. Those clues were meant as a way to get you here if you really did pose a threat… and it seems that you do… so we're just going to have to fix that, aren't we."

Logan hadn't noticed Adam's arm reaching behind his back, he was too focused on staring the Hanover down. As the other boy finished his speech, however, Logan's attention was immediately caught by a shiny object Adam had pulled from behind him… moments before the Hanover lunged at him with a knife.

Logan didn't even have time to think of a reaction; his body moved on reflex. He threw his arms up in front of him and shut his eyes. _Yeah, like this is going to help, _passed through his mind as he waited for something to happen; but nothing made contact with his body. Hesitantly, Logan opened one eye to see Adam lying on the floor halfway across the room, a knife a few inches from his open hand. Julian was standing over him, arms still outstretched. The Hanover wasn't moving.

It was a few moments before Logan regained the ability to speak. "Y-you just… and then… WHAT JUST HAPPENED?"

"Do you seriously think I'd say any of that stuff or hold hands with that _creep_?" Julian gave a visible shutter. "That was seriously some of the best acting I've ever done. Now come on. We gotta move!" Before Logan could say anything, Julian grabbed his hand and yanked him into the hallway.

Logan immediately turned to head for the stairs he had come up but was stopped by a sharp tug when Julian didn't follow. "What? That's the way out," the blond pointed with his free hand towards the stairwell.

"But there's an elevator over here," Julian pointed in the opposite direction. "It'll be faster and Adam will have a harder time following us if he wakes up!"

Without hesitation, Logan turned and followed Julian in the opposite direction. "There's seriously a working elevator in this building?"

"Apparently… That's how Adam got me up here, so I'm not even going to question it."

"Works for me," Logan shrugged.

Julian smacked the 'down' button, giving a sigh of relief when he heard the familiar whirring of the approaching elevator. With a ding, the doors opened and the actor pulled Logan inside.

They both turned to face the open doors to see Adam fling himself out of the office. Seeing them, Adam's face lit up with a crooked smile, his eyes filling with a strange, determined glow. The Hanover made a mad dash for the elevator, still holding the knife in his hand.

Both Stuart's pluses quickened. "_Shit_! Hit the close door button! NOT THAT ONE! THE OTHER ONE!" Logan screamed in panic as Julian, who was closer, hit the panel.

"I'm hitting it! I'm hitting it!" Julian hit the 'close door' button repeatedly.

"WELL THE DOOR'S NOT CLOSING!" Logan looked frantically between Julian and Adam.

"I think it's jammed!" Julian looked up, eyes widening in fear to see Adam running at them, knife raised… towards the still open elevator door.

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><p><strong>AN:** Yeah... about that... sorry again for the cliffhanger! And believe me, no one wants Adam to just go away more than I do :(

I'll try to get the next chapter out soon! I hope you enjoyed this chapter though (even though it was probably upsetting to read)!

Also, **PLEASE REVIEW**, at least for this chapter! I'd especially like to know how you emotionally react to this chapter. I'm still _**very, very**_ new to creative writing (this is only my second _real_ story). I know how I felt when I'm writing this stuff, but I'd really like to know how you, as a reader felt while reading it. I'd like to know if I'm doing a good job or if I need to fix my writing in any major way. If you do review, I will love you forever!


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: **First off, I want to say thank you to all of you who have stuck with me this far. I LOVE YOU ALL!

Secondly, this the chapter where the T rating for mild violence really comes into play. However, it's really nothing too bad. I made sure to leave the description as mild as possible for the circumstances, so don't worry :)

Thirdly, yes, this chapter is also short. Under better circumstances, this chapter and chapter 11 would have been one chapter. But due to the circumstances I explained in the last chapter author's note, I had to split them.

Fourth, if you were holding off on reading chapter 11, I think it's safe to read that and chapter 12 now :)

So here it is. Chapter 12. I hope you enjoy it :) Please Review!

_Disclaimer: __I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._**  
><strong>

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><p><strong>Chapter 12<strong>

The doors slide closed as Adam made contact on the other side, the thudding echoing through the elevator. Before he had time to think, Logan punched a button on the panel. He stared wide-eyed at where Adam had been moments before as he let what had just happen wash over him. _That was_ way _to close._

Suddenly, hands gripped his shoulders and pushed his back into the doors. Lips crashed into his. Once he realized what was happening, Logan returned the kiss, his fingers finding their way into Julian's hair. They wished the kiss could last forever, but they both knew the elevator ride was only so long. As they separated, they leaned their foreheads together.

"You have no idea how much I've wanted to do that the past few days," Julian said barely above a whisper.

"I think I do." Logan leaned in and pecked his lips. Suddenly, he pulled back. "Shit, I need to text Derek!" He pulled his phone out, quickly typing a message.

.

_Julian. 5 Green St Bedford, OH. Send Police NOW. – Lo_

.

Julian took a step back. "You didn't tell Derek?"

"I didn't exactly have time to inform him AND save you!" Logan shoved the phone back in his pocket.

"Whatever… as long as we get out of here." At that, the elevator doors slid open. The indicator above the door caught Julian's attention. "Why are we on the second floor?"

Grabbing the brunet's hand, Logan pulled him out of the elevator as he explained in a low whisper. "When I came in, I saw two stairwells. Since we took the elevator, Adam had to have taken one of them. If we had gotten out on the first floor, there is a _very_ high chance that he would have caught us." Logan stopped in front of a door, next to which was a sign indicating that it led to the stairs. "Now, Adam most likely took the other stairwell," Logan pointed back towards the elevator, "since it's closer. If this works, Adam will get to the first floor, see the empty elevator and head back up to figure out what happened. We just need to time it so that we escape when he goes back upstairs looking for us."

"That… that might actually work."

"No kidding. Now let's go. We'll wait at the bottom and leave when we see him go back up." Shoving the door open, Logan grabbed Julian's hand and dragged him into the stairwell. They half-ran down the stairs, stopping at the bottom. Julian crouched down beside the door, back to the stairs, ready to run when the coast was clear. Logan kneeled, peering through the glass window in the door that led to the first floor hallway. He could see the elevator and the entrance to the other stairwell. Both Stuarts waited with baited breath for Adam to appear and then disappear back up the other stairwell.

A minute passed.

"Shouldn't he have made it down here by now?" Julian hissed just loud enough for Logan to hear.

"Shh!... But I was wondering the same th-" He froze when a door in the stairwell above them slam.

"Clever idea, you two. But unluckily for you, the other stairwell was blocked," said a voice behind the pair. Julian and Logan faced each other, wide eyes locking. They turned simultaneously to look back up the stairs.

Adam stood at the top of the steps, breathing heavily. His eyes were filled with a strange, determined glow. Taking a deep breath, the Hanover rush down the stairs at the two other boys, knife raised high.

"MOVE!" Logan yelled. He sprung up, flinging the door open and yanking Julian, who was still frozen in shock, by the upper arm in one fluid motion.

Running headlong down the hallway, Logan could hear the sound of Adam's footsteps thudding behind them in hot pursuit. Only one thought ran through Logan's head. _Make it out the front door_. If they made it outside, they could make it to Logan's car and get away… or there would at least be a chance a witness would see something.

Suddenly the world seemed to move. Logan fell face first into the carpet, coughing as he inhaled the thick dust coating it. With Julian's arm still fully in his grasp, the actor fell straight onto the blond, knocking the wind out of the boy below him.

Reacting within seconds, Logan rolled over so that both he and Julian were lying on their backs. The prefect leaned back on his elbows over the actor, protecting the boy beneath him.

As Adam approached not a moment later, Logan gave him a swift kick to the knee caps, sending the Hanover to his knees. Adam winced in pain. Taking advantage of the distraction, Logan immediately flipped back to his stomach, allowing Julian to move.

Rising into a seated position, Julian scooted back a few feet to give Logan more room.

From his stomach, Logan rose to his hands and knees as well, making to push off the ground into a standing position. Suddenly, he felt a searing pain in his right calf. He collapsed back to the floor. Turning his head, he saw Julian tackle Adam to the floor, knocking the knife out of his hand. The actor knelt over the Hanover, pinning his wrist to the ground.

Seeing that Julian was safe, Logan let the pain finally take over him. His calf was on fire. Rolling to his side, he bent his right knee, applying pressure with both hands. It was then that he realized his leg was wet. _No… no… He didn't…_ The pain intensified with the passing moments, blurring his thoughts. A voice cut through the static.

"Logan! LOGAN! Please answer me! Are you ok? I can't turn around to see you."

"Y-yeah, I'm fine, Jules." Logan was blatantly lying. He had used almost all of this strength to force that sentence out in a reasonably believable way. But he didn't want Julian to get distracted, not while he was still holding a thrashing Adam to the ground.

"Logan. I know you're lying. Tell me the tru-"

All three flinched when the sound of sirens cut through the air.

Adam thrashed harder. "You weren't supposed to call the police! YOU GOOD FOR NOTHI-"

"Shut up!" Julian screamed, forcing Adam back down onto the floor.

The doors behind them flew open as the sound of footsteps and several voices filled the air. Two officers made their way directly to Julian and Adam.

"Move son," one of them commanded the actor. Julian hesitated for a moment before finally getting off the floor and allowing the two officers to cuff a protesting Adam and take him back out the front door.

"We're going to need to talk to you about what happened," a third officer appeared beside the actor.

"Yeah… yeah. Of course." The officer steered Julian by the shoulder to one of the chairs lining the wall of the lobby and began to ask him about the events of the past week and everything else Adam had done. As he answered, his mind wandered to the boy on the floor down the hall. _Please be ok, Lo. Please._

"All right, you're free to go." Julian bolted out of the chair and ran to Logan, who was being attended to my three paramedics and an officer, who was probably questioning him as well. He fidgeted anxiously as he looked on, unable to get closer to the blond.

"You're going to be fine," one of the paramedics said. "The knife barely broke the skin, so you won't need stitches. The cut was long though, that's why there is so much pain and blood. But we'll need to bandage it."

_Knife… Cut… BLOOD… No. Oh my… No!_ Julian could barely stop himself from pushing through the paramedics blocking his view of Logan, but he knew leaving them alone would mean he could have Logan all to himself sooner.

After what felt like hours to Julian, the paramedics parted. One lifted a disheveled Logan to his feet, supporting him while he got his footing. Looking over the boy in front of him, he scanned his body for the wound… but he couldn't see anything. "You're all set. Rest for a day or two and you'll be fine."

"I've got him." Julian rushed to Logan's side. The paramedic smiled and allowed Julian to lift Logan's arm over his shoulder and thread his own arm around the blond's back.

"I'm fine, Jules. Really, I can stand by myself," Logan protested. But Julian ignored him, pulling him closer.

After a few moments of silence, Julian asked, "W-where did he hurt you?" He felt like an idiot for asking the question, but he really wanted to know.

"Oh… umm… my leg. My pants leg rode up when I fell… so you can't see it… which I'm guessing is why you're asking… the bandage is underneath… umm, yeah."

"Oh." There was silence again as they exited the building and made their way to Logan's car. Nearing the car, Logan tried to extract himself from the actor's grip and walk to the driver's side. "Hell no. I'm driving," Julian said sternly as he tightened his hold on the blond, steering him to the passenger's side door.

"You are _not_ driving _my_ car. I am perfectly capable of driving, thank you very much." Logan pulled away again, stumbling slightly.

"Yeah. Perfectly capable. You just got freaking stab!"

"No I didn't! I'm sure you heard the paramedic, it barely broke the skin!"

"I don't care. I'm driving." Julian yanked the, thankfully, unlocked door open and practically shoved the blond inside. He buckled the seatbelt before the prefect could protest further. "Now give me the keys." He held out his hand.

"No. You were the one that got _kidnapped_. Let me drive! I'm fine, I swear!"

"Those are just the pain meds talking. Now give them to me." He stared Logan down, receiving a similar glare in return.

"Fine." Logan angrily pulled open the glove box and threw the keys at an unexpecting Julian. "But just this once."

Julian barely caught the keys before they hit the pavement. "Really? You keep your keys in your glove box?"

Logan crossed his arms. "Just this once. I didn't want to lose them I there." He motioned with his head towards the building. "I'm not an idiot, you know."

Julian rolled his eyes and closed the car door, circling around the car to the driver's side and getting in. Starting up the car, Julian pulled away from the sidewalk. He glanced at the rearview mirror, seeing the three police cars, one of which held Adam, and the ambulance drive off in the opposite direction.

He sighed. It was over. They could move on now. Julian glanced over at the boy in the passenger seat. They had a lot to talk about.

Logan looked over at the driver's side, catching Julian's eyes before he fully redirected them to the road. A small smile creeped onto both of their faces. Slowly, Logan moved his hand to the space between their seats, resting it face up on the divider. Without hesitation, Julian removed his right hand from the wheel, placing it face down on Logan's. He interlaced their fingers and gave the blond's hand a small squeeze.

Yeah they had a lot to talk about. But for now, they were happy just being with each other. There would be more than enough time to talk later.

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><p><strong>AN: **D: I'm sorry for what happened to Logan! *sniff* But it turned out alright, right? So you'll forgive me? :)

I'm thinking there will either be 14 or 15 chapters in this story. We're almost there everyone :( But I'm hoping you've enjoyed the story so far and will enjoy the remaining chapters just as much!


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N**: OH MY GOSH, I AM SOOOO SORRY FOR THE DELAY! First I couldn't write for a week after Dalton was updated. Then real life happened and I didn't have much time to write. But the next chapter is complete!

This and chapter 14 were originally going to be 1 chapter, but the thing was getting pretty long. So I divided it so I could get something to you guess after this freakishly long wait.  
>That being said, this is a shorter chapter. Also, most of chapter 14 is written. However, I start school tomorrow and won't be able to get nearly as much writing in as I would like. I'll try to get the next chapter up asap.<p>

In other news, I've hit over 2,000 hits on "A Little Unconventional" and over 3,000 on this one! WHAT?  
>Thank you for sticking with me and thank you for the reviews (I got a couple recently that actually made me cry, they were so kind)! Your are all awesome and I still can't believe people actually like my writing!<br>You can always find me on tumblr. My URL is ravenclawjess :)

So here you are. Chapter 13 :) Enjoy!

_Disclaimer: __I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._

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><p><strong>Chapter 13<strong>

The ride back to Dalton was silent. Both boys were just too emotionally and physically drained to form coherent thoughts, never mind actual words. Julian drove, eyes focused on the road ahead while Logan stared out the passenger side window, taking in the view.

It was a comfortable silence. They were taking the time to appreciate the other's presence, relishing the fact that they were finally able to see and touch each other again.

While nothing passed between the boys out loud, that didn't mean nothing was shared. The whole time, their hands remained clasped together and small smiles graced each of their faces. Occasionally, the two Stuarts snuck glances of each other, almost as if to make sure that this was real, that both of them were really here, together. When they timed the looks just right and caught each other's eyes, they would turn away quickly, eyes darting back to the windows. But blushes bloomed on their cheeks and smiles grew wider at the realization that this _was_ real, this _was_ happening. They were here. They were safe. Together.

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><p>When they arrived at Dalton, it was half past three in the afternoon. Logan looked down at their interwoven hands. Unwillingly, he broke the silence. "We're going to have to stop holding hands, aren't we?"<p>

Julian looked down as well. "Yeah… I guess so. I-I still need to keep up the appearance that I'm straight, for my career. For now at least. Sorry." His eyes rose to look at Logan, who met his gaze. A crooked smile appeared on his face. "Holding hands with an attractive blond guy wouldn't really help my case, now would it?"

A matching grin washed over Logan's features. Quirking an eyebrow, he replied, "No, I guess not."

Hesitantly, they unhooked their fingers and the small smiles fell from their faces. Julian and Logan sat looking at each other in silence once more, unwilling to leave the relatively close proximity the car gave them, especially now that their hands weren't touching.

After a moment, Logan was suddenly on Julian's side of the car. Placing his hands on Julian's cheeks, he captured the actor's lips in a short but heated kiss. One of Julian's hands found its way between Logan's shoulder blades, the other laced into the blond's hair as he pulled the boy closer.

As suddenly as it had started, the kiss ended. Logan leaned back out of Julian's embrace. He turned in his seat and exited his car carefully, leaving a stunned Julian looking at him with unfocused eyes. "You coming, princess?" the blond asked breathily, closing the door behind him. To be honest, the name was growing on Julian, although he'd never admit it to anyone.

Taking a deep breath and shaking his head to help refocus, the brunet turned off the car and got out. Circling the trunk, he came to stand next to Logan, still a little out of breath. "Are you going to be able to walk by yourself?"

"I guess I'm going to have to try… No one knows what happened. Did you want to keep it that way?"

"That's probably the best idea. At least until I can get a hold of Carmen and tell her what happened. I'm pretty sure 'the kidnapping of teen heartthrob Julian Larson-Armstrong by a psychotic fan'," Julian waved his hand across the sky, as if framing the words in the air, "isn't something that's going to stay out of the headlines too long, even if there wasn't any media back there in Bedford… There's going to be a lot of damage control to do when the news gets out and Carmen's going to have to handle the majority of it. The longer we keep anything from getting out the better." Julian sighed. _I'm definitely not looking forward to that._

"_If_ it gets out," Logan stated adamantly.

"No. _When_. I don't underestimate the power of the media to somehow find out what happened."

"Oh I don't underestimate their power either. I _am_ the son of a senator, you know. I've seen what the media can do first hand. I just don't see how this could possibly get out."

They were both silent for a moment.

"Teen heartthrob, though?" Logan raised an eyebrow as he took a tentative step.

"What? You _know_ that's what the headlines would say!"

Logan chuckled as he took another step, finding that he could put enough weight on his injured leg to walk with only a small limp.

"Are you sure you're going to be ok?" Julian took a step to stand next to Logan again, hands held out as the prefect wobbled slightly.

"I'm going to be _fine_, Jules. Stop worrying! You might prematurely wrinkle if you don't stop freaking out right now… and I'm sure your agent would just _love_ that." Logan looked to Julian, giving the actor a smug grin.

Julian rolled his eyes, trying to hide the smile that was fighting to make an appearance on his lips.

They made slow progress back to Stuart House. Julian stayed close by Logan, prepared to support him if he started to fall. When they reached the door, Julian took a step forward to open it for Logan.

"Remember, everyone still thin-" Logan began. But Julian threw the doors open and exclaimed, "I'm back, you sorry bastards!" before Logan could finish.

Logan rubbed his temple, whispering, "Really, Jules? Your diva doesn't come with an off switch, does it?"

"What?" Julian looked back over his shoulder, confused.

"You were gone?" a voice came from the entrance hall. Julian turned back to see to whom the voice belonged. Logan looked in over the actor's shoulder to see a familiar mop of red hair.

"Greg! You saw me _leave_ the other day… and then… just…," the actor sighed. "You know what, never mind!" He threw his hands in the air in frustration and walked through the front door. He was met with confused looks from at least half of Stuart House, who had all just returned from class.

"You really need to listen to me more often," Logan hissed in Julian's ear as they walked through the entrance hall towards the staircase. "They all still think you're sick! They're probably all confused as to why you are coming_ through_ _the front door_ when you are supposed to be _in your room_!"

Julian's face fell. "Oh… well then." He just picked up his pace, heading up the stairs and to his room.

Before Julian could get more than two steps down the second floor hallway, someone had their arms wrapped around him in a tight hug. "Oh my… You're ok! Thank God, you're ok!"

When the actor realized it was Derek who was squeezing him, he gladly returned the hug. "I'm fine Derek. I'm glad to be back though."

The athlete held Julian at arm's length, looking him up and down as if trying to figure out if he was really there, standing in front of him. He didn't respond. His eyes glazed over with tears as he hugged his friend once more. "I'm just glad we weren't too late." Stepping back, he motioned towards Julian's room. "Go get some sleep… both of you," he looked to Logan who had been standing off to the side. "You both need it." Julian gave the athlete a light squeeze on the shoulder and a small smile as he walked past him towards his room.

Logan started to follow the actor but was stopped by a hand pushing on his shoulder. "Not so fast. I'm freaking _angry_ with you for not getting me before you went after Julian. Seriously, you both could have _died_!" he said through clenched teeth. "And I covered for you in class. In case any professors ask, Michelle was in a minor car accident so you had to leave to stay updated on her condition." Logan opened his mouth to respond but Derek raised his hand to silence him and kept talking. "That being said, I'm glad you're both safe. Now off to bed!" Derek grabbed Logan's shoulders and steered him towards Julian's room, giving him a little shove.

"Yes, mother," Logan whispered under his breath. He rolled his eyes before continuing down the hall to stand beside Julian in front of the actor's door. "Is there a reason you're just staring at your door? Forgotten how to work a door knob?" he joked as he looked at the brunet out of the corner of his eye.

"It's just…" Julian's hand moved to rub the back of his neck. "I…" He turned to look at the prefect, eyes filled with pain and uncertainty.

At the sight, Logan's expression softened. He waited a few moments for the actor to continue. Instead, the brunet turned back towards his door, leaning his head against it, arms hanging limply.

Logan raised his hand hesitantly to hover over Julian's shoulder for a moment before changing his mind and letting his arm fall back to his side. "You can tell me whatever's bothering you, you know."

Julian opened his mouth to speak but closed it before saying anything. He placed his forearm beside his head on the door, hitting the wood lightly. "It's stupid and irrational and-"

"Just tell me," the blond commanded. Raising his arm once more, Logan allowed his hand to rest on Julian's shoulder. He gave it a gentle squeeze. "Please," he pleaded.

Julian sighed before explaining quietly. "I don't think I can go back in there… not after… everything."

Logan looked around the hall quickly. Seeing no one, he slid his hand across to the boy's other shoulder and raised his other arm to encircle the brunet's chest in a hug. The blond rested his chin on Julian's shoulder and spoke quietly into his ear. "Why the hell would you think that's stupid or irrational?"

"Because going back into _my room_ shouldn't bother me this much."

"How many times do I have to say it? You got freaking kidnapped! I wouldn't want to go back to the place where it happened either." Logan stepped back, keeping one arm around Julian's shoulders. "Come on, princess. We're going to my room." The blond turned in the direction of his door and began to guide Julian along with him.

"But-" The actor stopped in his tracks, resisting the push of Logan's arm.

"No but's! Unless it's your butt heading to my room." Logan quirked an eyebrow. "Now come on. You can't go to your room and I'm not leaving you alone after almost losing you forever." Logan paused for a moment, the realization of what he had just said washing over him. Giving a cough, he continued, hoping Julian wouldn't comment on what he had said. "You're coming to my room. There's no use resisting." The blond looked into brown eyes pleadingly.

Julian gave Logan a small smile. "Thanks." He took a step forward as Logan followed suit. "For everything."

The prefect wrestled his keycard out of his pocket and slid it through the reader. As the light blinked green, he placed his hand on the handle and turned it. But before he opened the door, he winced, remembering something. "Shit."

"What's wrong?"

"I _may_ have destroyed my room while you were… gone. Twice."

"And?"

"You're not going to comment on the fact that I destroyed my room?"

"I expected as much."

"Thanks." Logan half-heartedly glared at his friend.

"Any time." Julian smirked.

"Anyways, I never cleaned it up. It's a disaster zone in there."

Julian rolled his eyes.

Logan gave him another half-hearted glare as he cautiously pushed the door open.

He was met by a sight he didn't expect.

Instead of broken objects littering the floor and every raised surface being clear of his possessions, everything was… clean; cleaner than he had ever seen his room before.

"Well this is _clearly_ a disaster zone. What happened exactly? Did the Pine-Sol Lady and Mr. Clean get into a fight or something?" Julian raised an eyebrow, trying to hold back the laugh that was bubbling up inside him.

"I can honestly say I have no clue what happened." Logan turned back towards Julian, catching a glimpse of Derek, who he hadn't noticed during his last inspection of the hall, peeking around the edge of the staircase. The athlete nodded once, a small smile on his face, before turning and retreating down to the first floor.

Logan shook his head in disbelief. _I have to remember to thank that idiot later… and then yell at him for going into my room while I was gone._ Once again, he turned back towards his room and stepped inside.

"I would make some witty comment about you not letting 'the princess' in first, but I'm way too tired to come up with something worthy of my efforts." Julian walked into the room after Logan, shutting the door behind him.

"If you're so tried, why didn't you let me drive? You could have slept on the way back!" Logan walked to his bed, clutching the headboard when he put too much weight on his injured leg and hissed in pain.

"Because of that," Julian gestured at the prefect. "Seriously. Just drop it! We're already back here anyways."

"Jerk." Logan whispered as he slipped off his shoes and dress shirt, not bothering to take off his pants because he only planned on taking a short nap.

"Prick," the actor mumbled as he walked to the other side of the bed.

"Diva Prima Donna Drama Queen of a Prick," Logan muttered as he threw the sheets down and gingerly climbed into bed.

"What?" Julian looked down at the blond, clearly judging him for that last comment.

"Oh, nothing!" Logan said quickly, pulling the sheets up to his chest. _Note to self: that name only sounds cool in your head. Never use it out loud again._

The blond snuggled down in his sheets, looking back up at the actor, who was still standing beside the bed. "Aren't you going to sleep too? You _did _say you were tried. You wouldn't want to disappoint Mama Derek, either." Logan tried to hold back a chuckle, but failed as it came out as a half snort.

Julian hugged his torso and looked down at the bed, avoiding eye contact with the blond. _It's not because he's shirtless. Nope. I'm not looking at him because I just noticed how nice his comforter looks. This comforter is awesome. Why did I never notice before? I should mention it sometime. Yep. That's it. Just looking at his awesome comforter. No other reason for not looking at him. Yep… Why am I even bothering. He's hot. Shirtless and hot. And lying in a bed. Looking at me. _Actually_ looking at me._

"In bed." Logan flipped the sheets down next to him, patting the mattress.

Julian shuffled his feet, continuing to avoid the green eyes looking at him.

"What's the problem? It's not like we haven't slept in the same bed before."

"I don't know." He finally looked up to meet Logan's gaze. "It's just weird, I guess." Julian hesitated a moment longer before kicking off his own shoes and removing his tee-shirt and climbing under the covers.

"Weird?"

"In a good way." Julian smiled, settling down on his back. "I think I just have to get use to it." He turned his head, smiling at Logan. _I've been waiting for this to happen for three years and now it's _actually_ happening. And this time we're not sick to our stomachs._ He moved his hand under the blond's, interlacing their fingers once more. "And I think I'm going to like getting use to this." He leaned over, giving the blond a peck on the cheek and squeezing his hand. "Have a good nap, love," Julian added.

"Yeah." Logan could feel himself blushing. He scooted a few inches towards the brunet, allowing his arm to brush against Julian's. _I think I'm going to like getting use to this too_, he thought.

Feeling the warmth of the body close beside them, the two Stuart boys quickly drifted off to sleep.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: Alright, so there will be at least one more chapter after this one. However, I have some ideas for an epilogue if anyone would be interested :) I'd be set one year later. Let me know what you think!


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N:** I am SOOO sorry for the delay in getting this chapter completed! I started school very soon after posting chapter 13 and my schedule allows me little free time to do things like write.

As always, thank you to all of my readers who have stuck with me this far. Whether you just started reading and have made it to this chapter or if you have been here since the beginning, I love you all! Also, thank you for everyone who has ever reviewed my work!

So without further ado, here is the second to last chapter.

_Disclaimer: __I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._

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><p><strong>Chapter 14<strong>

Logan was awoken by a sudden movement next to him. His eyes fluttered open as he groggily tried to figure out was happening.

Looking down, the sight brought a smile to his face. Julian and Logan had dozed off lying side by side but at some time during their nap, they had changed positions. Now they were both lying on their sides, wrapped snuggly in each other's arms. The brunet lay with his head on the blond's heart.

Finally breaking thorough his sleepy haze, Logan saw that the boy he held close was not sleeping peacefully. The movement that had woken him had been caused by the boy lying against him. He was shaking. The smile immediately fell from Logan's face as his eyes widened in concern. Gently, the blond leaned Julian away from his chest to get a better look at him, still keeping a tight hold on the smaller boy's shoulders. Looking down into the actor's face, all he saw was unfocused brown eyes staring straight ahead at his chest in shock. Logan quickly pulled the still shaking boy back into his chest.

"Jules, it's alright. I'm right here. Shhh. I'm right here. It's going to be alright." He rubbed the brunet's back comfortingly. He continued to whisper to Julian, holding him close and placing small kisses on the top of his head until the brunet became still. As Julian moved further into Logan's embrace, the blond held him close. "What's wrong?"

"It-it's nothing, Logan. Just go back to sleep." Julian nuzzled his face into the blond's chest.

"That was definitely _not_ nothing."

"It's stupid. Really. Just drop it."

"You can't just keep telling me everything is stupid." Logan said harshly. Realizing his tone, the blond took a calming breath before continuing more reassuringly. "Please, Jules, just tell me what's wrong."

Julian hesitated for a moment. "Fine." He took a deep breath before continuing. "I had a nightmare. Happy? Now can we _go back to sleep_? Please?"

There was a short pause before Logan responded. "That's _not_ stupid."

"_Yes_ it _is_."

"_No_ it's _not_." Logan gave an aggravated sigh. "How many times do I have to say it? You were freaking _kidnapped_ and held by a crazy psychopath who threatened and then tried to kill both us! You're not stupid for being scared!"

"Whatever." Julian moved out of Logan's grasp and rolled over to face in the opposite direction.

After a minute of staring at the wall across the room, Julian suddenly felt arms warp around his waist and a chin lean on his shoulder. "If it makes it any less '_stupid_'," Logan emphasized the word so much that Julian could practically see the blond's eyes rolling, "I had a nightmare while you were gone."

The actor quirked an eyebrow and gave the blond a small grin. "Really?" Julian rolled onto his back to look up at Logan, who was still lying on his side, arms wrapped around the brunet.

"Hey! Don't look at me like that. I'm just saying that everyone has nightmares. Don't feel like it's stupid to have one. And don't feel like anything you're thinking is stupid. I may not show it very often… or at all really… but… I really care about what you think."

"So you missed me?"

"Of course I missed you, you idiot."

Julian rolled back over on his side to face Logan, moving towards him a little. "Well good, because I missed you, too."

Julian moved further into Logan's embrace, intertwining their legs and wrapping his own arms around the other boy, trying to move as close as possible. They lay there in complete silence for a few minutes.

"Hey, Lo. Did you fall asleep again?"

"No, I'm still awake. Why?"

"I just wanted to say thanks for finding me… I don't think I've thanked you yet."

Logan looked down at his friend, a small smile appearing on his lips. "You don't need to thank me. You saved me too, remember? If you hadn't tackled Adam to the ground… I-I don't know what would have happened." He gently kissed the oak brown hair beneath him. He continued to speak, voice muffled by the brown locks. "I would never have forgiven myself if I didn't find you in time." There was a few seconds of silence before Logan turned his head to place his cheek on the top of the actor's head. "I love you."

Julian pushed back from Logan's chest just enough to look up into the blond's eyes. "You should know that what I said on Monday… I'm _so_ sorry for whatever I put you through because of that." He reached a hand up to stroke the prefect's cheek lightly. "I love you, too."

Logan brought him closer. "I-I know we aren't even dating yet… but I love you. I just know I do. I think I always have in a way but I've been pushing the feelings away all these years because I thought you were straight." Logan moved one of his hands from where it lay on Julian's side to tilt the brunet's head up so he could look into his eyes.

Julian lightly pressed a kiss to Logan's lips, pulling away and smiling widely at the blond, who smiled widely back. With a mischievous twinkle in his eye, the blond crashed their lips together. The brunet responded just as eagerly as the kiss quickly escalated.

Less than a minute had passed before they froze at a loud knock on the door. Their lips separated as they continued to cling to each other.

Logan took a few breaths to slow down his rapid breathing before responding. "Who is it?" he snapped. Whoever this was had just interrupted his make out session with a very handsome brunet_._

"Oh good, you're here. It's Bailey. I just wanted to remind you that we have Warbler practice in half an hour. You've seemed… distracted this week so I thought I'd remind you just in case you forgot or something."

"Uh, yeah. Thanks for that. I'll be there." He waited for the sound of retreating footsteps before rolling out of Julian's embrace and flopping back down on the bed. "Shit. I forgot about practice. _Again_."

"Are you sure it's a good idea for you to go with your leg the way it is?" Julian motioned to where the blond's leg was noticeable under the comforter.

"No one knows what happened. I can't just bail on practice this close to Regionals because of a leg injury no one knows about. It would raise suspicion which would cause questions which could lead to people finding out what happened before Carmen is ready to deal with the media backlash, never mind before you are ready to deal with it."

"Wow you've _really_ thought about this. Wait. Didn't Derek say that everyone thinks Michelle was in some kind of accident? I'm sure that's a valid enough excuse to get you out of practice."

"That could wor- shit. I already told Bailey I was going." Logan kicked at the sheets with his good leg. "Shit!"

"Just don't go."

"I have to, dumbass, otherwise I'm kicked out!" Sitting up, Logan swung his legs over the side of the bed. Slowly, the blond pushed off the bed, making sure to keep most of his weight off his injured leg. Once he was standing, he looked down, noticing his uniform pants were extremely wrinkled. _Great. Just Great. Why the _hell_ didn't I take these off before I got into bed?_ Rolling his eyes, Logan hobbled over to his closet, pulling the door open and yanking out a pair of pants. Unfortunately, he did so a bit too forcefully, sending the clothing falling to the floor. _Oh this just keeps getting better and better! _ He took a step to retrieve his pants from where they lay on the floor. Suddenly, his right leg gave out. "Shit!" Clutching his dresser, Logan caught himself before he could fall completely to the floor and righted himself. "Well this is going to be fun."

"Just don't go."

"Stop saying that like it's the answer to everything! I _have_ to go! Now if you want to actually be useful, help me with my pants."

Julian glared at the blond before rolling his eyes, mumbling a few profanities under his breath and rolling out of the bed. Walking to the closet, the actor bent down, retrieving the pants with ease from where they lay on the floor and took a step towards Logan, holding the slacks out to him.

Logan snatched the pants from the brunet and then unbuttoned the wrinkled pair he was wearing. Without a second thought, he dropped the wrinkled pair to the floor and quickly pulled on the fresh pair, keeping a death grip on the dresser and being careful of his wounded calf. Buttoning them up, Logan looked up to see Julian gawking slightly. When the brunet saw the green gaze, he recomposed himself. "What was that for?" the blond questioned.

"Noth- what do you mean? What was what for? I wasn't doing anything," Julian responded, his nervousness bleeding through as he rushed the words.

"Well it sure looked like you were staring at me," Logan raised an eyebrow.

"I have no clue what you're talking about," Julian responded, slightly flustered.

"You-" Logan was interrupted by another knock on the door. "What?"

"Sorry. It's Bailey again. If we don't leave for practice now we're going to be late."

"Yep! Be right out!" Logan turned away from the door to see Julian holding a white dress shirt out to him. "Thanks." The blond grabbed the shirt and buttoned it quickly before rummaging through his drawer for a tie and pulling one out. "Shit! My shoes." The prefect scanned the room, locating his shoes a few feet away near his bed where he had taken them off earlier. Tying his tie hastily, the blond stumbled across the room.

Suddenly, the floor wasn't below him anymore. He was falling, having put too much weight on his injured leg. Logan grabbed the end of the bed before he hit the floor. But it wasn't the bed that had saved him from falling face first onto the hardwood. A pair of arms were laced securely around his waist, supporting him.

"I still think you shouldn't go." Julian helped the other boy to sit on the edge of his bed, handing his shoes to him.

"Just shut up already. I'm going." Logan bent over, succeeding in knotting his shoes more than actually tying them. Standing slowly, the blond made his way to the door, followed closely by the brunet. "What are you doing? You know you can't come with me…"

"Yeah… yeah of course. You shoul-" His sentence was interrupted by lips pressing against his in a short kiss. The blond gave him a small smile.

Opening the door, Logan found Bailey standing in the hall, headphones in place as usual. "You didn't have to wait for me. I know how to get to Warbler Hall."

Bailey looked up at Logan, whose hair was still slightly tosseled from the nap, tie slightly askew, and shoes barely tied. The prefect was usually so put together. What had happened? Looking past the blond, Bailey saw Julian standing by the bed in a similar state of disarray with even less clothing on.

"I thought you said we were late." Hearing Logan's voice, Bailey's vision snapped back to look at the prefect.

"Yeah. Yeah. Let's go."

At that, the blond glanced back over his shoulder once more. What the blond saw caused him to stop in his tracks. Julian was standing beside the bed, hugging himself. Logan could tell the smile on his face was there as a reassurance to his friend that all was well. But the look in the actor's eyes gave away his current insecurity and fear. _What the hell am I doing?_ Logan mentally kicked himself. He couldn't leave Julian like this. Not so soon after what had happened the past week. Not so soon after that nightmare.

Thinking quickly, Logan yanked his phone from his pocket and stared at the blank screen, hiding it from Bailey's view. "Oh my…!"

"What?" Bailey looked up at the blond.

"I-it's Michelle…. Apparently… she… Logan looked up with wide eyes at the shorter Stuart.

"Logan. If you still have family stuff to deal with I'll tell Harvey and Medel. I'm sure they'll understand, even this close to Regionals." Bailey gave him a reassuring smile.

"Thanks man." Logan placed a hand on Bailey's shoulder and stepped back into his room, closing his door on a concerned looking Bailey

"Why didn't you go?"

"I thought you were the one who didn't want me to leave?"

"Touché."

"But really, I couldn't leave you like this."

Julian gave him a small smile, "Thanks." He took a few steps forward and hugged the blond tightly.

After a moment, Logan whispered into Julian's ear, "So, where were we?"

* * *

><p>Julian and Logan had dozed off when they heard loud banging on the door. Both shot bolt upright in bed.<p>

"What the hell now Tipton?" Logan yelled groggily.

The door whipped open to reveal a head of red hair rather than brown. "It's me, Greg. Not Bails." The freshman stopped dead in his tracks when he saw there was one more person in the room than he expected. His eyes widened as his hand moved to rub the back of his neck.

"What the _hell,_ Greg! You can't just throw doors open like that!"

"Umm… sorry… it's just… ummm… I think you need to go down to the front door… Like, now."

"And why the heck would I want to do that?"

"Well you're prefect… and there's a bunch of reporters and cameras and junk outside and - wait where are you going?"

"Where you told me to go!"

At the word reporter, Julian's eyes had widened more than he thought was humanly possible. Logan had flung the sheets off himself and half limped across the room and past Greg out of the room to the foyer.

Using his height to his advantage, the blond pushed through the crowd of students standing around the open front door, elbowing and shoving whenever he needed to until he made it to the front of the group.

Looking out over the lawn, the prefect was not prepared for what he was seeing. Reporters and cameras were _everywhere_. Students coming back from clubs or the library stood on the outskirts of the mob, trying to find a way through the dense pack of people to get back to their rooms.

Standing on the top step, Logan cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled over the loud rumble of the crowd. "Shut up!"

Startled that a student had just done such a thing, the crowd's noise lowered to a barely audible whisper.

"Why the _hell_ are you all here?" The blond yelled out at the group.

A brunette reporter near the front of the group glared up at Logan. "You _live_ here and you _seriously_ don't know what's going on?"

"Of course I don't because _nothing's_ going on," the blond spat back.

The reporter, along with a few others, burst out laughing. "Oh that's precious." The woman wiped a fresh tear from her eye brought on by the heavy laughter. "You'd have to be living under a rock to not know that Julian Larson was kidnapped this week and just made it home, here to Dalton, this afternoon. Seriously. It's been blowing up every TV station and website out there for the past few hours." The reporter rolled her eyes, placing a hand on her hip. "Now if you'd move, we could actually do our job."

Logan was seething. _How the hell did that story get out and how did they get on the grounds? _

Taking Logan's unresponsiveness as a sign of submission, the reporters and camera crews' voices rose once more, trying to call Julian out of the building. But the blond had had enough.

"All right. That's it! Get off the grounds!" He yelled once more over the crowd, pointing towards the front gates.

The brunette reporter rolled her eyes. "Seriously kid. Who are you to order us around? Now where is Mr. Lar-"

"Get off the grounds or I will have my father dig through every classified file in existence until he finds something blackmail worthy about you. All of you! And _don't_ you pretend like there isn't something you wouldn't want found about you."

Completely unphased by this boy's threat, the brunette reporter placed a hand on her hip before responding. "And may I ask who your father is?"

"Senator John Logan Wright." The reporter's smirk fell and the rest of the group looked up at the blond in shock. "Now get off the grounds!" Logan knew is father would never do something like look through classified files for him. This wasn't a life or death situation like Shane's rockslide. He had nothing political to gain from it. But _they_ didn't need to know that.

Recomposing herself, the brunette responded, "You really expect me to believe that you're Senator Wright's so-"

The cameraman next to her leaned over to whisper in her ear before she could finish the sentence. "I'm pretty sure the Senator does have a son who goes to Dalton. And this kid _does_ look an awful lot like him."

Logan didn't hear any of what the man whispered. All he saw was the two sneaking glances at him and the reporter's eyes widening and her smug grin falling once more.

Turning to face the prefect again, the reporter cleared her throat anxiously. "I t-think it's best if we all leave now. We'll get more information from Larson's manager anyways." With that, the reporter turned and walked through the crowd and back in the direction of the main parking lot. Sharing confused glances with each other, the remaining group followed suit.

Satisfied with his work, Logan turned and walked through the doors of Stuart with a wide smirk on his face. The foyer, which had been packed with students, was surprisingly empty now. Walking past the common room, he saw the large group of boys had crammed onto and around the couches. A voice traveled from the television. "The source, a middle-aged man who was jogging by the scene at the time, reports that he saw several ambulances and police cruisers outside an abandoned office building in the outskirts of Bedford, OH. A young man was seen being forcefully removed from the scene by a pair of officers. Minutes later, Julian Larson himself was seen exiting the building with a boy in his late teens who drove away with the actor, supposedly back to Larson's school at Dalton Academy in Westerville. The source also overheard a conversation between EMTs moments later that revealed the three boys had been involved in a kidnapping. The boy arrested at the scene is suspected to be the kidnapper. No contact could be made with Julian Larson for comments. Attempts are being made to identify the third boy at the scene. Attempts are also being made to acquire more information from police and emergency services involved. At this time, all are only confirming that there was indeed a kidnapping but are withholding any more information a-."

Aggravated mumurs, sighs, and swears rose from the group in the common room as the screen went black. "Ok everyone. Go where ever you want but you can't stay here." Seeing the prefect standing behind them holding the TV remote, the boys didn't need another word before they were up and scurrying out of the room. None of them would stay with the way their prefect's eyes were beginning to glow.

Watching the last boy run out of the doors, Logan collapsed into the nearest seat. It would only be a matter of time before the whole story got out now. That would mean countless interviews and probing questions. Basically nothing he wanted to deal with… or wanted Julian to have to deal with.

"Hey." The blond looked up to see Julian leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. Taking a step forward, the brunet closed the doors behind him and made his way over to sit on the couch next to Logan. "I assume the media found out?"

"I chased them off the lawn myself. Those_ assholes_. Can't they just leave good-enough alone?" Logan kicked over the coffee table in front of him.

"They're the media, Lo. Being assholes is their job. And I guess everyone is Stuart knows I wasn't actually sick now…"

"This is _not_ going to be fun." Logan sighed, head returning to his hands.

"Nope." Julian threw an arm around the blond's shoulders. "But at least I have you."

Looking over at the actor, the blond replied, "Why are you getting all cheesy on me?"

"Because it's true." Julian bumped up against his side, smiling.

"Ok. Fine. I really can't disagree… I'll be here all the way through this. Whatever those jerk-face, dumbass reporters throw at you, they throw at me, too."

"Now who's getting cheesy?" the actor chuckled. Julian moved his arm from Logan's shoulders to intertwine their hands.

"Oh, shut up." Leaning in, the prefect kissed the actor, giving him the same warm smile he saw on the other boys face.

They would have a lot to deal with in the coming months. But at least they had each other. And for Julian and Logan, that's really all they needed.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** There will be an epilogue set a year after this chapter (Julian and Logan's senior year). I hope to get that out soon!


	15. Epilogue

**A/N: **So here it is; the promised epilogue. I'd recommend at least skimming the original ('A Little Unconventional') before you read the epilogue because I make some references to it (although it's not completely necessary).

I want to thank everyone who has read this story and especially thank those of you who've given me reviews. You've really helped me through all of the writer's block along the way.

It's weird that this is the end of the story, since I've been writing this since May. I'm still amazed that anyone read this at all and even more amazed that some people even liked it. This was my second multi-chaptered fic and only the first one I'd written chapter-by-chapter, so that makes it even more amazing.

On another note, the entire story somehow reached over 50,000 words... I still can't believe I wrote all of it.

Again, thanks to everyone who has stuck with me this far, whether you've been here from the beginning, have only found this now that I have finished, or you fall somewhere in between :)

And now the final chapter of 'A Little Unexpected'. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing this fic.

_Disclaimer: __I do not own any of the characters or anything else Dalton related, which all belongs to CP Coulter. I also do not own anything having to do with Glee._

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><p><strong>Chapter 15<strong>

_One year later_

"So, Julian," the talk show host leaned forward in his chair, "it's been a little over a year since your kidnapping. Can you tell us how you've been doing? It must have been hard for you, especially with all those interviews right after it happened."

_You have no freaking clue_. But he would never tell anyone other than his friends, family, or therapist about what had really happened. He would never tell them about his daily nightmares, which he still had to this day, albeit less frequently. He wasn't going to tell them how it had taken months to stop jumping at every noise. So he pulled out the answer he used at all of these interviews. The media and general public would never be the wiser.

"It would have been hard, but I had a lot of help from a few people really close to me. And of course my fans helped a lot."

At that, the audience cheered, some even stood up. Turning to them, Julian flashed his famous smile, sending everyone into even more of a frenzy.

Once everything had calmed down, the host continued with his questions. "You always say that 'people close to you' helped you through, but you never specify. Care to elaborate? Is there someone _special_ we don't know about?" The host gave Julian and the camera a suggestive wink.

_Of course he'd bring that up._ They always did. The radio DJs, the interviewers, the talk show hosts. All of them, without fail. Normally, he would just brush it off with a straight 'no.' Other times, he'd get creative and say something like, 'That's for me to know and the rest of you to find out,' followed by his signature smile and a wink if he was on camera or in front of an audience. But today was a special day, and that called for a special answer.

"Yes." Although the actor knew exactly what the reaction was going to be, he wasn't fully prepared for the volume. All of his fans in the audience immediately erupted at the news that their favorite actor was not single.

Once the crowd had settled down, the host continued. "Really? How long?"

"About a year." _Actually, _exactly_ a year. _

"And who is this special someone."

"I don't think we're ready to come out fully to the public, but they are definitely a very special person to me." He smirked a little to himself at the double-meaning in his response.

"Don't keep your fans waiting too long. Going off their reaction to this news, I don't think they'll last long not knowing." The host turned to the audience. "Isn't that right?" Once more, the audience erupted. "Thank you again Julian Larson for being such a wonderful guest, as always. I can't wait to have you back again."

"Can't wait to come back." He shook the host's hand.

The host turned to the camera, sending the show to a commercial break. "Alright. Stay tuned, because after the break, we are going to be talking to the cast of _Finally_ _Coming Home_, which is sure to be this summer's biggest blockbuster. So stay tuned."

"And we're clear!" the director yelled.

Julian stretched in his seat before standing up to shake the host's hand.

"Thanks again for the interview, Julian. It's always a pleasure." He smiled widely.

"Likewise." The actor smiled back. Feeling a hand on his shoulder, he turned to see his manager, Carmen.

"Nice interview. You handled that final question wonderfully." Placing a hand between his shoulder blades, she led him off stage and back to his dressing room. "Have a good day," she smiled knowingly at him. "But not too good. You have another interview tomorrow at noon. Your driver will be there to pick you up-"

"At nine. I know. We've been over the schedule."

"Alright. Just be ready this time." With another smile, Carmen closed the door.

* * *

><p>Julian made his way up the steps of Stuart, opening the door quietly before slipping in and easing it closed. It wasn't that late, but seeing as Finals Week was approaching, the entirety of the house was studying for the upcoming exams. He knew making noise at this time of year would earn the perpetrator a verbal berating; not that he couldn't keep up with anyone who tried to yell and argue with him, because he could give a verbal slap in the face better than almost anyone in Stuart. He just had more important things to do and places to be at the moment.<p>

Softly padding across the foyer, he approached the closed doors that led to the common room. Julian turned the knob and pushed the door open slowly.

"Greg! I don't care if your roommate has suddenly turned into a werewolf and wants to eat you, for the last time, the common room _isn't open for studying_!" Logan yelled from the couch where he sat with his back to the door.

Julian closed the common room door behind him, leaning back with his arms folded across his chest. "Damn. I was hoping to get some Calculus memorized. Maybe I'll just come back later."

The blond whipped his head around at the familiar but unexpected voice. "Jules? You're back early."

"Yeah. Sorry about that. I guess we could have made dinner reservations. But Carmen let me go earlier than I expected… so here I am." He pushed off the door and took a few steps forward, the smile widening on his face. Logan stood from the couch, rounding it to stand in front of the brunet, smiling as well. The blond wrapped his arms around the boy's frame as Julian leaned in to kiss him gently.

"By the way, I saw the interview. Why didn't you tell me you were going to announce that today?" Logan looked down into brown eyes.

"Because I didn't want you to convince me not to… and I wasn't sure how you'd feel about it. I'd decided I wanted people to know about you. About us. You're too important to me to hide from everyone any longer."

Logan chastely kissed the brunet's lips. "I'm so proud of you."

"I didn't even really say anything. There's nothing to be proud of really."

"But you took the first step to coming out, telling the public about us, and that _is_ something to be proud of, knowing what might happen to your career and stuff."

"I guess."

"Either way, I'm always going to be proud of you, no matter what." Logan leaned down, capturing Julian's lips once more.

They stood together, lazily exchanging kisses, before Julian hesitantly pulled away, leaning his forehead on Logan's. "I'd love to keep kissing you for hours, but I smell something amazing and I'm starving."

"Of course you are." Julian didn't have to see Logan's face to know that the blond had just rolled his eyes. Smirking, the actor allowed himself to be led over to the table by the fireplace that he hadn't noticed when he had first walked in.

The table was small, just large enough to hold the few plates on top, which were white with delicate silver ivy adorning them. The table cloth was a deep burgundy, offset by the silver flatware and a single, silver candelabra in the center.

Julian looked over at Logan, trying to hide a smile. "Did you seriously recreate our first date?"

"So you noticed." Logan quirked an eyebrow, also trying to hide a smile, and wound his arm around his boyfriend's waist.

"You could have just gotten Chinese food or something."

"What? I'm not allowed to recreate our first date?"

"Don't get me wrong, I love it. But you didn't have to go through so much trouble."

"It wasn't trouble at all. It seemed like the only fitting way to celebrate our one year anniversary anyways."

Julian allowed the smile widen and reach his eyes. He turned his head to kiss Logan's temple and then rested his head on the blond's shoulder. "I love you."

"I love you, too. Now let's go eat the pasta before it gets cold."

Logan moved his arm from around Julian's waist to intertwine their fingers, leading the boy towards one of the chairs. Feeling a tug on his arm, the blond turned his head to look at the actor who wasn't following. "What?"

Pulling Logan towards him, the brunet led him towards the other chair at the table. "_You_ made dinner." Letting go of the other boy's hand, the actor pulled out the chair and motioned for him to take a seat. "_I_ get your chair."

Logan stared at Julian and the chair with his arms crossed for a few moments before giving a half eye roll and moving towards the seat. "But I didn't actually_ make_ dinner. If I had, you wouldn't have had a dorm to come back to."

"Fine. You _ordered_ dinner, I get your chair. Better?"

"Much." Logan dropped into the seat and Julian pushed in his chair. The brunet walked around the table to take his own.

The two Stuarts ate dinner, talking over their day with their usual banter and snarky comments. As they finished their food, Logan pushed his chair away from the table and stood.

"Where are you going now?"

"It's a surprise." Julian saw what he could only describe as a mischievous twinkle in the blond's eyes. Or maybe it was just a trick of the firelight. "Sit on the couch. I'll be right back." With that, Logan slipped through the common room doors.

Curious and a little confused, Julian stood and walked to the couch, making himself comfortable. Moments later, Logan walked back through the doors with a small tray in his arms. As he moved closer, Julian made out what he was carrying.

"Chocolate covered strawberries?" The actor's lips turned up in a smile. "But I thought the place the Twins got them from last year closed down."

"It did. I made these."

"Are you sure they're safe to eat then?" Julian glanced at the strawberries as if they were about to explode, looking up at Logan with a quirked brow.

"Completely. I may not be able to cook, but I'm not about to poison my boyfriend." Placing the tray on the coffee table in front of them, along with a few napkins, the prefect took a seat.

"But the fact still stands that you can't cook."

"But this didn't _involve _cooking. I shoved some chocolate in the microwave until it melted and then poured it on some strawberries. If anything, I'd call it baking."

Julian paused for a moment, still eyeing the strawberries suspiciously. "I'm still concerned about these, no matter what you call making them."

"Just eat a damn strawberry, Larson." Logan said firmly.

Rolling his eyes, Julian leaned forward and plucked a strawberry from the tray. Logan followed suit.

"But really, thanks for doing this, Lo." The actor kissed the blond gently.

"You're welcome, Jules."

As they leaned back from the kiss, they both smiled at each other for a moment. The sort of smile that they reserved for moments when they were alone; that one that said more than any word or action could.

Then they took a bite of their strawberries. Both boys chewed for a moment before the smiles turned to looks of disgust. They grabbed napkins from the coffee table, spitting out the fruit and chocolate.

"You are trying to poison me!" Julian yelled.

"Stop being a drama queen, Larson!"

"I would if you weren't trying to poison me!"

"I'm not trying to poison you!" Logan threw his strawberry back on the tray.

"Then explain what I just ate!"

"I seriously have no clue why these taste like crap, okay!"

The actor took a calming breath before continuing, still agitated. "What kind of chocolate did you even use?" Julian had picked up another napkin from the coffee table and was wiping his tongue off with it.

"It was the stuff we have in the kitchen. I don't know. I don't bake."

"Sure, _now_ you admit it." Calming slightly, the actor continued. "Maybe it was bad or something."

"Maybe… Wait. I think the wrapper's still on the counter from earlier." Logan stood and walked quickly to the kitchen, returning with the chocolate wrapper. "Let's see… Ghirardelli."

"The brand doesn't matter, your majesty."

"_Shhhh_." Logan sat down on the couch and looked up from the foil to glare at the actor before reading further. "There isn't an expiration date. The only other thing this says besides the nutrition facts is 'baking chocolate.' I don't see what the problem is."

Julian shoved Logan in the arm. "You used baking chocolate to cover the strawberries? _Seriously_?"

"What? I was _baking_ so I used _baking_ chocolate." The prefect looked annoyed and a little offended.

"Because baking chocolate has no sugar in it, you idiot!" Julian's half-scowl began to twist into a smile. Soon the actor was holding back a fit of laughter.

"What the heck, Jules." This time it was Logan's turn to shove Julian.

With that, the brunet burst into laughter. "You used freaking _baking chocolate_. This is priceless."

"I still don't understand what's so funny." Logan crossed his arms, looking very annoyed. But the actor kept laughing. Soon enough, Logan couldn't help but join in.

When they had tired themselves out from laughing, the boys found themselves curled closely together on the couch with their legs bent up on the cushions. Logan's head lay on Julian's chest as the actor absentmindedly played with the blond's hair.

"Sorry." Logan looked up at the brunet.

"For what?" The actor's brow knit slightly.

"For ruining a perfectly good date." He straightened himself slightly, Julian's arm coming down from his hair to wrap around his waist. "And our anniversary slash 'congratulations on sort-of-but-not-quite coming out to the public' date, too."

Julian lowered his head to look squarely into the prefect's eyes. "You didn't ruin our date, Logan. If anything, you made it one to remember. I'll never forget how you tried to poison me by feeding me baking chocolate." He let out a small laugh. "And I'll also never forget all of the trouble the man I love went through to set this all up."

"You can be so sappy when you want to be. You have clearly been in too many romantic comedies for your own good."

The brunet kissed him. "I'd say just enough to keep my level of romantic sappiness at its optimal level."

"If calling it that makes you happy, then sure."

"Very happy." Julian kissed him again.

Logan curled up next to Julian once more, placing his head back on his chest. "It's been a really long year."

"Especially with all the Adam stuff."

"Yeah." Logan paused for a moment and then continued. "But I was thinking more about where _we_ were a year ago."

Julian chuckled. "I was the one curled up on you. Except you still had no clue I loved you."

"Hey, at least I figured it out… eventually." Logan let out a little laugh.

Julian wrapped his arms around the blond more securely and buried his nose in the other boy's hair as Logan lazily traced his hand over the actor's chest. Turning his head so his cheek lay against the blond's hair, Julian started to hum.

At first, Logan couldn't make out what the tune was. It was only when the actor had almost reached the end of the song that he realized what he was humming. The blond looked up, a smile appearing on his face. Julian lifted his head and looked down when he felt the head moving under his cheek. He continued humming as Logan began to sing along.

_Yes, you and me__  
><em>_We will be living__  
><em>_In a fairytale ending__  
><em>_Yes, you and me__  
><em>_We will be living__  
><em>_In a fairytale ending  
><em>_A fairytale ending_

"Is that our song now or something?" Logan asked.

"It can be if you want it to be, I guess."

"I do like the ending… and I like our ending, too."

"And you called _me_ the sappy one?" Julian laughed.

Logan continued to smile up at Julian as he finished the song.

_Welcome, welcome__  
><em>_To happily ever after_

Curled up on the couch, the two Stuarts shared another kiss.

Their relationship had been a little unconventional from the start and had encounted some unexpected twists along the way. Knowing them, their relationship would inevitably be a rollercoaster of emotional up's and down's.

But for now, Julian and Logan were here, with each other. And that's all either of them needed for their happily ever after.

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><p><strong>AN:** Thank you all again for reading. I hope to write more at some point. Whether it'll be Jogan or not, I'm not sure. But it will definitely be Glee/Dalton related. Until then, you can find me on Tumblr as ravenclawjess.


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